Atrocities and Artifacts. The Berlin Museum of Ethnology and a Collecting Trip into Eastern Galicia

This article explores a 1942 collecting trip by staff of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology to Eastern Galicia, then under German occupation. The expedition resulted in the acquisition of 361 ethnographic objects from local populations, including items obtained under coercive conditions amid war, occupation, and the Holocaust. By analyzing archival sources, the article highlights the complex interplay of power, opportunism, and ideology that shaped museum collecting in this context. The legacy of these objects, still housed in Berlin, prompts urgent questions about provenance, restitution, and the responsibilities of museums today.