Un/sichtbar! 80 Jahre Kriegsende. Perspektiven des Gedenkens bei BERLIN GLOBAL

In the organizer's words:

May 8, 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. How do we remember? What remains hidden? What is rediscovered?

The event "Un/visible! 80 Years of the End of the War" at BERLIN GLOBAL is dedicated to the diverse forms of remembering and forgetting. In lectures, films and readings, the artist Anna Krenz, the activist Margitta Steinbach and the cabaret artist Sigrid Grajek deal with un/visible biographies and fates. They focus on individual and collective perspectives.

In a concluding discussion between Anna Krenz, Margitta Steinbach, Sigrid Grajek, Raimund Wolfert (Magnus Hirschfeld Society) and the moderator Shelly Kupferberg, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and share your thoughts.

The evening is intended as a collection of impulses - independent and juxtaposed. We cordially invite you to be part of this mosaic of memories. The author and journalist Shelly Kupferberg will guide you through the evening.

Program

Part 1:
Living memory: Polish women fighters and resistance activists in Berlin
A performative lecture by Anna Krenz

In 2024, a tree in Berlin was named after Irena Bobowska - a poet, artist and resistance fighter in the Polish underground movement. The 22-year-old woman, who was imprisoned by the Gestapo in Poznan, wrote poems and drew until her death by guillotine in Berlin in 1942. Thanks to the commitment of Polish activists, her story became part of the Berlin memorial space.
In a performative lecture, artist and researcher Anna Krenz tells the stories of Bobowska and two other extraordinary women who were active in the resistance in Berlin: Jadwiga Neumann and her comrade-in-arms Stefania Przybył.
Neumann made her apartment available for conspiratorial meetings and secret service briefings, but was then arrested and executed in Plötzensee. Her story was forgotten. Przybył, sentenced to death, fled from the prison in Moabit in a spectacular way, leaving her sister behind in the cell.The lecture focuses on strategies for remembering Polish women in German memorial culture as well as the work of Anna Krenz, who brings their stories back into the public space through artistic interventions.

Part 2:
"Leaving Auschwitz"
A film by Jakob Weingartner. Production: Menda Yek Germany, Margitta Steinbach, Esther Bernsen (2024)

Margitta Steinbach (AMCHA Deutschland e.V. and founder of the association Menda Yek e.V.) travels to Poland with the members of her association to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site.

It is not only the older Sinti who want to return to the place where their ancestors were exterminated in order to understand the horror of their families. They are also joined by their daughters and their friends of the same age, who embark on a search for identity and hope between the horror of the past, the present and their own future.

The documentary film "Leaving Auschwitz" deals with the role of family memory in remembering the victims of the Holocaust. Margitta Steinbach, initiator and producer of the film, fights for recognition in the German culture of remembrance with her community work.

Part 3:
"Always we lived in fear, even in our dreams."
Sigrid Grajek reads selected texts by radio broadcaster, lesbian and survivor Eva Siewert

Eva Siewert (1907-1994) was a German journalist, writer and radio broadcaster. In the 1930s, she worked as chief announcer at Radio Luxembourg and wrote for various newspapers. She was persecuted, arrested and imprisoned during the National Socialist era because of her Jewish origins, her homosexuality and statements critical of the regime.

In 1938, Siewert met Alice Carlé, with whom she had a close relationship. In 1943, Carlé was deported to Auschwitz and murdered. This loss had a lasting impact on Siewert's life and writing. However, Eva Siewert's work remained unnoticed for a long time. To save her work and fate from being forgotten, the Magnus Hirschfeld Society initiated the digital memorial project In Memory of Eva Siewert.

It provides biographical insights and makes her work visible again, with Sigrid Grajek reading selected texts by Eva Siewert in the third program item of the event.

Discussion
Afterwards, we invite you to a discussion with Anna Krenz, Margitta Steinbach, Sigrid Grajek and Raimund Wolfert (co-initiator of the project In Memory of Eva Siewert) and the moderator Shelly Kupferberg. You will have the opportunity to ask questions and share your thoughts.

- 5 EUR, reduced 3 EUR
- from 12 years
- Language: German
- Berlin Exhibition, 1st floor, Room 5 Berlin Room