In the course of these protection measures around 11000 people fell victim to displacement actions, which were pure scare tactics to intimidate people. Most of the families were expelled and their homes pulled down in the two main governmental actions called Vermin in 1952 Cornflower in 1961, but further single expulsions happened until 1988.
To this day there is no public recognition by the German government of these actions, probably because authorities fear a consequential financial claim for compensation by the numerous victims.
I went to photograph the locations of these obliterated homes and villages and although in some places remains can be found, I was more interested in showing the land that once surrounded the inhabited space, but now has taken over and hides any knowledge of them. Depicting the absence, my pictures also symbolise the ignorance and non-recognition of this chapter in the inglorious history of the communist controlling state of the GDR.
I separated the sequence of photographs into two sections: one is shot during the summer to symbolise the measure Vermin in May/June 1952 and the pictures of the second section are taken in winter to stand for the action Cornflower in September/October 1961.