Monday, January 30, 2020.- January marks the opening of Musealia’s new exhibition: Seeing Auschwitz. We’ve created it in collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and in partnership with the United Nations and UNESCO. 

Following on from our major exhibition Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away. — currently in residence at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York — Musealia began discussions with the UN and UNESCO about developing a small-scale pop-up style exhibit to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Seeing Auschwitz is the result. 

Auschwitz was the largest killing centre in human history. Yet our mental image of the camp  — how we ‘see’ Auschwitz — is shaped by the relatively small number of photographs that exist. As well as pictures taken after its liberation and aerial reconnaissance shots taken by the Allies, the sources include The Auschwitz Album, a collection of around 200 images capturing the arrival of a transport of Hungarian Jews in 1944; The Höcker Album – a series of photos showing the SS relaxing in a resort close to the camp; prisoner mug shots; and approximately 2,400 family photos found in the plundered possessions of the deported – the majority of whom were murdered.

For the viewer the images are problematic and not only because of the horror they depict: Nazi perpetrators took many of the photos, initially forcing us to see the world through their lens. 

Created by a curatorial team led by Holocaust education expert, Paul Salmons, the exhibition challenges us to look beyond the photographers’ intentions to explore what each photograph reveals, not only of the place and time, but of the photographers themselves.

Speaking at the launch of the exhibition Luis Ferreiro —CEO of Musealia— said “75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, genocides, and atrocities continue to scar our world. If we remain blind to them, can we really say that we have ‘seen’ Auschwitz at all?”

Seeing Auschwitz has already opened and runs at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris until February 5^th and the UN Headquarters in New York until February 24^th. It’s planned that in 2021 the UN will offer Seeing Auschwitz to its almost 60 information centres around the world supported by additional educational material produced by Musealia. In parallel, it’s our ambition to take the exhibition to museums, cultural and educational institutions.

If you’re in New York or Paris during this time, we hope you’ll take the opportunity to visit; admission is free. If you’d like to find out more, visit our project website:  www.seeing-auschwitz.com.