11.09.2014, Representation of the State of Lower Saxony to the Federation, Berlin

Impressive closing event of the “find felka-find felix” project and final event of the Fence Exhibition

At an evening event on 11 September 2014 the International Auschwitz Committee and the Representation of the State of Lower Saxony to the Federation in Berlin remembered the pair of artists Felka Platek and Felix Nussbaum. Trainees from Volkswagen AG, who had helped to design and set up the Fence Exhibition on 11 July, also took part in the evening event.

Following the words of welcome by Michael Pelke, Representative of the State of Lower Saxony to the Federation, Eva Fahidi spoke. She is a survivor who was deported as a Hungarian Jew to Auschwitz. She traced a line between the Hungarian Holocaust and the anti-Semitism of today. Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the IAC, gave an introduction to the reading of the forty fictitious diary entries saying: We remember and commemorate, in order to live, and for life.

In a staged reading titled “I see dogs straining at their leashes”, Eva-Maria Kurz and Gerd Grasse recounted some of the key experiences in the lives and work of the two Jewish artists from Warsaw and Osnabrück. The fictitious diary entries based on the lives of the two artists were written by Christoph Heubner.

The event was accompanied by drawings by Petra Rosemann. Inspired by the fictitious diaries, she has illustrated the lives of Felka Platek and Felix Nussbaum.
Despite the closing event, the project lives on, as Christoph Heubner pointed out to the guests during his farewell remarks. On the one hand, there will still be calls on the Internet to find more clues to the lives and works of Felka Platek and Felix Nussbaum, and Petra Rosemann is working to complete her series of drawings inspired by Felka Platek and Felix Nussbaum. Afterwards, the IAC will be publishing a book with the fictitious diary entries by Christoph Heubner and Petra Rosemann’s drawings: commemorating and preparing for the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, which Felka and Felix, like so many others, never experienced.

More texts about Felka Platek and Felix Nussbaum

• Christoph Heubner tells the story of Felka and Felix at www.find-felka-find-felix.info.  Read more