from the series
"6|44 – 5|45"
Ungarisch-Jüdische ZwangsarbeiterInnen
Ein topo|foto|grafisches Projekt
Nr. 21, Gunskirchen
C-print
titled, dated and numbered on label on verso
Gunskirchen, area of the camp Hochholz
From the 21-part edition (S_0672 to S_0693) from the project "6|44 - 5|45 Ungarisch- Jüdische ZwangsarbeiterInnen“ (Hungarian-Jewish Forced Laborers). An artist's book about the project was also published; available from Maria Theresia Litschauer (www.mt-litschauer.at)
Of the approximately 15,000 Hungarian Jews who were deported to Austria (Straßhof transit camp) in June 1944 to compensate for the acute labour shortage - successful negotiations by a Jewish rescue committee had excluded them from the deportations to Auschwitz that began after the invasion of German troops in Hungary in March under the leadership of Eichmann - about 1,200 were transferred to the Waldviertel region, where they had to carry out forced labour in 31 enterprises between June 1944 and April 1945.
The present portfolio comprises a selection of a series of landscape and architectural photographs taken in 2005, which are representative for various economic sectors. They refer to places of forced labour as well as the place of arrival of the deportees, Straßhof, and Mauthausen, Gunskirchen and Theresienstadt, the last places of the Jewish forced laborers 'evacuated' before the advancing Soviet troops
(Maria Theresia Litschauer)
The unpretentious design of her pictures evokes a feeling of calm and distanced idyll in the spectator, which is in stark contrast to the actual content of this work. This enormous discrepancy impressively describes Austrian mechanisms of repression.
(Fritz Simak)