Culture, Remembrance

Waldsee 1944

About this project

The organized exhibition commemorated the 565,000 Jews who perished during the Second World War. It is to remember the Hungarian deportations that took place 75 years ago. Its concept closely relates to our previous contemporary art project, Waldsee 1944, which we started in the gallery in 2004. Its starting point is the camp postcards that the prisoners of Auschwitz were forced to write and send home, in which they informed those who stayed home that they had arrived safe and sound and were doing just fine. The text could contain no more than 30 words. This time, instead of visual artists, we invited authors, poets, and literary translators to write their postcards from Auschwitz for our 2019 exhibition. We eventually received 75 postcards put all on display in 2B Gallery.

Why is it important?

The Holocaust generation, including those involved in the Waldsee event, will eventually disappear. Therefore, their heritage will become of utmost importance to us. The objects they leave behind with the historical locations and documents leave an indelible mark. In this case, the camp postcards and the artwork they inspired will prove a living connection between past and present.

Why is it special?

The externally forced – as opposed to our instinctive – remembrance impairs the artistic attempt to process the Holocaust, which is rather obvious in the often clichéd, uninspiring works created for similar exhibitions. This feeling of compulsion could be somewhat relieved if we pick a moment from the paralyzingly heavy narrative of the Holocaust, a moment that has not yet been overused, a moment that could inspire artists to finally and truly identify with the subject. Since its inception in 2004, 190 Hungarian and international artists have joined the project, and we have held exhibitions in 29 different places in Hungary and abroad, thus creating new spaces for collective remembrance.