Auschwitz – site and symbol of the German National Socialist extermination policy. All around the world, the name of the southern Polish town has become synonymous with the Holocaust and genocide. It stands for the murder of millions of Jews, Poles, Sinti and Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others who the Nazis considered unfit for the “Volksgemeinschaft.”
When we hear the words “Auschwitz-Birkenau,” our minds are inevitably flooded with an array of images: the entrance building in Birkenau, the snow-covered tracks and the sign above the main gate that reads “Arbeit macht frei.” These are signs and symbols that are terrifyingly known to us, images that are circulated in the media and are thus associated with a sense of familiarity among the general public – a state of mind which is often coupled with the presumption to always already know everything about Auschwitz.
This illustrated book wants to encourage people to look again and to look closer. It is not our intention to simply add our voices to those loudly crying “Never again!”, and we have no interest in pointing fingers at social behaviorisms that are to be expected. According to photographer Martin Blume, “vagueness offers up a space for one's own projection, sidestepping dismissal and denial.”
Photographs by Martin Blume and essays by Stéphanie Benzaquen, Tomasz Kobylański and Christoph Kreutzmüller
„Kein Fotograf arbeitet gerne für Schubladen, doch bei einem Thema wie Auschwitz ist die Frage der Öffentlichkeit eine besondere Herausforderung. Wozu noch mehr Bilder? Für welches Publikum? Martin Blume hat diese Fragen eindrucksvoll beantwortet, einen langen Atem und eine besondere Hingabe bewiesen.“
Photonews. Zeitung für Fotografie Jg. 27, Nr. 3/2015
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