DIE LEHMANN

Bernau bei Berlin

2018

Die Lehmann is based on the mostly unknown history of the Lehmann family, who used to live across from Galerie Bernau, for which the project was created.

On April 13, 1942, Margarete, Willy, René, and Helga Lehmann were deported to the Warsaw Ghetto along with eight other people from Bernau. After one year in the ghetto, they managed to escape separately with the help of nearly a dozen people who sheltered and smuggled them between Poland and Germany.

Their story remained unknown because they survived the Holocaust and therefore received no memorial. In order to reinsert their story into the social fabric of Bernau, I created a participatory format: their deportation and escape story was divided into 31 elements under three main categories — people, places, and means of escape and transport.

Over four weeks, nearly 45 participants came and each chose one element to represent as a wood- or linocut. 23 woodcuts and 22 linocuts were made, resulting in more than 150 prints.

All these elements, together with the social space created through the printmaking process, formed a participatory cartography of this family's history, which was then replicated by the participants themselves by explaining it to others.

This project was part of the collective exhibition DENK UM! MACH MIT! together with Jiaying Wu, Ling Yu, and Stephan Schmidt at Stadtgalerie Bernau.