The exhibition "Three Days Before Auschwitz" shows everyday scenes from the lives of people who were later transported to the Auschwitz extermination camp and murdered there. They are supplemented by comparable images from everyday life today.

We can never know what will happen tomorrow. If we are not vigilant, we are in great danger! We must always remain aware and keep reminding ourselves that carefree normality can break at any time: Every day can be "Three Days Before Auschwitz".

The publication "Before the Extermination" (edited by Kersten Brandt, Hanno Loewy and Krystyna Oleksy) shows photographs found in Auschwitz. You can see everyday scenes and thus a piece of the life story of the people who were later transported to the extermination camp and murdered there, including wedding photos, photos of family outings or parties, holiday photos, family portraits and many others. It contains professional photos as well as snapshots from everyday life full of exuberance, cheerfulness, joy or celebration, in short: happy scenes from life. Nothing suggests the horrors that these people later had to endure.

The artist Hüseyin Işık uses them as the basis for drawings that resemble these depictions. These are supplemented by images of current everyday normality: holiday photos, photos of celebrations and documentation of important family events such as weddings, births and the like, drawings of such scenes as well as modern depictions such as selfies, ...

This creates a disturbing comparison of the past and the present. Combined with a warning: We must always remain aware, always remind ourselves that carefree normality can break at any time.

The finissage is intended to commemorate those victims who are otherwise often forgotten - the Roma, Sinti and Lovara and members of other ethnic groups, nationalities and political groups as well as people who were persecuted and murdered because of their sexual orientation, their faith, their state of health, simply because of their appearance or for other reasons.

We can never know what will happen tomorrow. If we are not vigilant, we are in great danger! Every day can be "Three Days Before Auschwitz"!

"Three Days Before Auschwitz -

The Almost Forgotten"