Photography
2023
14 DAYS
Where do you find shelter when the sirens are wailing for a nuclear strike?
In contrast to Switzerland, where every citizen should still have access to a fully functional shelter, there are no longer any officially maintained public shelters in Germany.
Unfortunately, since the war of aggression against Ukraine, the fear of an escalation of the East-West conflict through nuclear weapons has once again become a hair-raising reality.
The Pankstraße underground station was built in 1977 as a multi-purpose facility and, in addition to its function as a railway station, also serves as a shelter for war and disasters. In the event of a nuclear strike, you would have to wait two weeks here to avoid the deadly radioactive fallout - the so-called fallout. According to the principle "first come, first served", there would be room for exactly 3339 people before the merciless hydraulic doors close for 14 days...
I would like to thank the association "Berliner Unterwelten e.V." for allowing me to take photos and would like to refer to the guided tours through the bunker system in Pankstraße.
This selection of works follows on from the exhibition of the same name European Month of Photography in Berlin (03/02/2023 – 03/31/2023), which was initiated by Maren Lübke-Tidow, the Artistic Director of the EMOP.
