Trainees stage performance against anti-Semitism at the Kunsthaus Göttingen.

Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, was a guest for three days in Kassel, together with trainees from Kassel and Wolfsburg. Their aim was to follow up on their one-week working stay at the Auschwitz Memorial in May this year. The young people felt it was important for them to share their impressions and experiences with the visitors at documenta fifteen. They developed a performance which, over the last few days, included their position on the current anti-Semitism debates surrounding documenta fifteen in Kassel and which they presented at the Kunsthaus Göttingen. Christoph Heubner commented on the impressions he gained from encounters with visitors, and especially on the general situation of documenta fifteen:

"Every single day that the documenta continues and those responsible stay silent, sitting things out without acting constructively, is a day lost for the future of the documenta in general. The hope that the bright colours of this documenta will successfully conceal the offensive events of the first days, is utterly unrealistic. The people visiting documenta fifteen are well-aware of the situation. They are deeply shocked at what has happened, and they have a strong desire for the documenta to continue as a showcase to the world, with curators who refuse to discriminate against or exclude people, as has happened this year. For this reason the visitors want to be included in a debate about the huge-format anti-Semitic canvas and a discussion about the causes of worldwide anti-Semitism. In view of the events at documenta fifteen, this discussion also has to include the important, and bitter recognition, that the exclusion of Israeli and Jewish artists from the international culture industry has progressed much further than at first imagined, an exclusion that is sometimes loud and clear, and sometimes quietly discreet. But now the only option for the documenta is to take the bull by the horns: It must engage in discussions with the visitors and open up spaces for all the people who have long since recognized the significance of the anti-Semitism scandal and the helpless, narrow-minded handling of the situation as the central disaster of documenta fifteen."