The actual number of people affected by politically motivated adoption is still unknown. Depending on the source, there’s talk of several hundred to several thousand children who were separated from their parents during the GDR era and given up for adoption. East German family law stipulated that parents should raise their children ‘to be active builders of socialism’. They had to ‘respect work’, ‘love the Soviet Union’, and ‘defend the borders – if necessary with armed force’. If parents failed to follow these instructions, the state had the power to revoke their right to raise their children. The subject of forced adoption is controversial to this day, and the process of coming to terms with injustice in the GDR is ongoing. In the documentary work was geschehen und nie geschehen ist (what happened and never happened), photographers Paulina Metzscher and Amelie Sachs, together with the author and filmmaker Eva Gemmer, address the respective family histories of those affected. What’s left behind? Grief? Loss? Hope? The exhibition presents a selection of artistic photographs accompanied by texts and archival material.