Permanent exhibition

Since June 2003 visitors have been able to view a permanent exhibition on the ground floor of the document building and in a former camp hut. The exhibition does not proceed in chronological order but follows a structural presentation principle. In the hut, there is a glass showcase dedicated solely to the fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in Zeithain. The camp hut also contains historical inscriptions written or carved by prisoners of war. These have been conserved and rendered more readily visible.

In the document building, five historical topics are documented in separate modules. These include prisoners of the war in the Second World War and the erection of the camp, the fate of the Italian military internees, the Polish prisoners in Zeithain, the relationship between the German population and prisoners of war, the investigation of the widespread deaths and how prisoners of war were received in their homeland.

The concept of the exhibition utilises the educational principle of learning by discovering. The concept developed by Irish architect Ruarí O'Brien embraces the core ideas of stimulating independent activity, searching, researching and discovering. Independent activity on the part of the visitor should help him or her to interact with the topics of the exhibition in greater depth. Users can control the speed, steps and depth of learning themselves. This in turn motivates them to engage in a process of learning on their own. Separation of the visibility level from the detail level is intended to accommodate visitors' varying needs.