November 6, 2005
Preview: Susanne Schleyer - A German Photographer
Confronts German History
My brother continues to be a great source for new story ideas.
Just like he recently linked me up with Bruce
Bell, one of Toronto's most well known experts and historians,
he recently read about a German photographer by the name of Susanne
Schleyer who had just published a new book, "Unterwegs"
("On the Road") with 100 photos and stories from 12 different
cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, London, Paris,
Prague, Rom, San Francisco, Saint Petersburg, Venice and Vienna.
I started doing some research on Susanne's
website and realized that she had done other interesting projects
and yesterday I spent two hours on the phone, talking with her in
Berlin. Susanne is an interesting individual. She is in her early
40s, and studied art and German philology in Berlin and later photography
in Leipzig. From 1990 onwards she has undertaken travels for photography
projects to Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Chile, Argentina,
Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, England, Scotland,
Italy and the United States.
For her recent book "Unterwegs"
("On the Road"), Susanne created photos in 12 different
cities. Then she selected authors to whom she presented the photos
and she requested them to write stories, using the photos as inspiration.
The book was just recently published in September of 2005.
The project that fascinated me even more is called "Trilogy
- A German History Project", that she did jointly
with another artist, Michael J. Stephan. "Trilogy" consists
of 3 exhibitions composed of images and sound collages that are
each independent but connected. The exhibitions explore German history,
sixty years after the end of World War II and the collapse of German
National Socialism. With the last witnesses of these times nearly
gone, Susanne and Michael set out to search for traces, to come
up with a way for asking questions about these times on an artistic
and subjective level.
In Part I "Asservate" ("Exhibits" -
A German Family Chronicle 1907 to 1997), Susanne explores
her grandfather, a family taboo, as he was an official in the NS
regime. The exhibit explores 3 generations of German men, her grandfather,
her father - a totally apolitical individual, and her brother, all
of whom lived in 3 different social orders: the Third Reich, the
former communist East Germany, and today's reunified Germany. While
working on this project, she realized that this part of history,
which was presented in high school as if it was as far removed as
the Middle Ages, was much closer and still touched the present.
In Part II "Bueno! Alemanes en Argentina 2000"
Susanne and Michael travelled to Argentina to explore the world
of German immigrants who came to Argentina before, during and after
WWII. In total they spent almost a year connecting with German immigrants
in Buenos Aires. These German immigrants encompass a variety of
different groups, including Jewish refugees, non-denominational
leftists, economic adventurers and outright National Socialists.
They are truly a motley collection of victims and perpetrators who
have shock-frozen an image of Germany as it was at the time when
they left.
Part III "Sologubovka - Russia" is anchored
around the consecration of Europe's largest war cemetery in Sologubovka,
a small village near St. Petersburg. The five-hectare burial site
was chosen by the German War Graves Association, which scouted various
cemeteries with the unmarked graves of German soldiers in Russia
before deciding on this location. The remains of German soldiers
from smaller burial sites in the region were also collected and
buried at Sologubovka., which is now the resting place of 60,000
German soldiers, around half of whom have been identified. It is
estimated that up to 80,000 will be buried here when the cemetery
is completed, making it the largest war cemetery in Russia. This
lavish cemetery stands in stark contrast to the one single symbolic
grave commemorating hundreds of thousands of Soviet victims that
died during Nazi Germany's 900 day siege of Leningrad (the Leningrad
Blockade). Incidentally, Susanne Schleyer's grandfather fell in
1941 and was reburied in the Sologubovka Cemetery, closing the loop
of the Trilogy..
For all these projects, Susanne and her partner did years of research,
studying historical and sociological texts in addition to spending
substantial amounts of time on location to produce photos, interviews
and sound recordings. These 3 components of Trilogy were
produced between 1994 and 2004 and the exhibitions have been shown
in various cities in Germany, including Berlin, the Netherlands,
Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Buenos Aires.
In my upcoming interview Susanne will talk to us about what motivated
her to do this enormous Trilogy project, and she will
tell us of her fascinating experiences along the way, confronting
herself with her own family's history, meeting German and Jewish
immigrants in Argentina, and she will share her experiences in Saint
Petersburg.
Susanne's work is of particular interest to me personally, since
my father was a Nazi as well who was drafted in 1941 at 17 years
of age to fight in the Second World War. As was the case with Susanne's
grandfather, my father is a great enigma for me. I was never close
to my father and left my home country of Austria at the young age
of 20. It was only in the last year of his life that I had a real
conversation with him, with him opening up just a little bit.
My father has been dead now for more than 10 years, and to this
day I have never been able to find out what his personal involvement
was during the WWII years. The one thing I can say is that my attitude
today in terms of being a fervent supporter of intercultural openness
and racial, ethnic and religious tolerance was shaped to a great
degree as a response to World War II history that touched me personally
in the form of my father.
The Second World War still has weighs on many people, 60 years
after it came to an end. And it weighs on the descendants of the
perpetrators as well as on the descendants of its victims, albeit
in different ways. The concept of "collective guilt" in
subsequent post-war generations is not fictitious.
My father and his role during this time have remained a mystery
to me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have linked up with
Susanne Schleyer, a woman who has taken the initiative to explore
her own family's history in the context of World War II.
Related Articles:
Questioning my own family's
personal history
What makes me tick
Celebrating diversity
|