Women who fought the Nazis, remembered in exhibition put together by two artists in Berlin

  • 3 months ago
In a commemorative effort, artists Hannah Goldstein and Claudia Balsters have curated an exhibition spotlighting the vital roles women played in resisting the Nazis.
Transcript
00:00This is an act of remembrance for the women who fought against the Nazis.
00:09Artist duo Hannah Goldstein and Claudia Balsters put together an exhibition highlighting the
00:16roles women played in opposing Hitler's regime.
00:21Women's stories have always been considered less important than the men's stories.
00:26There are many reasons to speculate why that is, but one reason is the winners get to tell
00:29history, right?
00:31The winners write history, and so far, mostly in our history, it's been white men that write
00:36history and they will write about themselves.
00:39Germany marks the 80th anniversary of an assassination attempt against Hitler on Saturday.
00:46Annador Leber is the wife of one of the people involved in the plot.
00:50She was imprisoned by the Nazis and went on to write about resistance fighters.
00:55The artists say some visitors have been surprised to find some of their relatives' names on
01:01the wall.
01:02Since we've been showing this work in France and in Germany, with visitors who maybe remembered
01:09their own family stories, who saw our images and were quite touched by the histories that
01:18they entail, and maybe questioned and reflected on their own role in society as well.
01:25Last year, a memorial for LGBT victims of the Nazis was vandalized in Berlin.
01:30Earlier this month, police said there was graffiti on a plaque remembering the deportation
01:36of Jewish people in the city.
01:38In the past, a leading member of the far-right Alternative for Deutschland referred to one
01:44of the memorials as a monument of shame.
01:49The exhibition comes amid a strengthening of the far-right.
01:53In last month's EU elections, the Alternative for Deutschland came in second in Germany.
01:58The artists say they hope their work provides inspiration in today's political context.
02:03We need to keep fighting because we've got a quite frightening situation in Europe at
02:08the moment.
02:09We're in money parts of the world and we need to be brave and we need to show that we don't
02:14want to live this way.
02:15We want a just and we want a fair world and I think people who come here can take inspiration
02:21from this exhibition and say, yeah, look, they did it then, we can do it now.
02:28The exhibition runs until September 8th at the Willy Brandt House at the Social Democratic
02:36Party headquarters in Berlin.

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