In/visible! 80 Years after World War II
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| 5 EUR, reduced 3 EUR |
| Tickets can be booked from one month before the event at the foyer of the Humboldt Forum or through the online ticket shop. |
| 12 years and older |
| German |
| Berlin Exhibition, 1st floor, Hall 5 Berlin Room |
On 8 May 2025, we will mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. How do we remember? What remains hidden? What is rediscovered?
The event at BERLIN GLOBAL is dedicated to the diverse forms of remembering and forgetting. Through a lecture, film, and reading, artist Anna Krenz, activist Margitta Steinbach, and cabaret performer Sigrid Grajek explore visible and invisible biographies and fates, focusing on both individual and collective perspectives.
In a concluding discussion between Anna Krenz, Margitta Steinbach, Sigrid Grajek, Raimund Wolfert (Magnus Hirschfeld Society), and moderator Shelly Kupferberg, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and share your thoughts.
The evening is conceived as a collection of impulses – independent and standing side by side. We warmly invite you to be part of this mosaic of remembrance. Author and journalist Shelly Kupferberg will guide you through the evening.
Programme
Part 1:
Living Memory: Polish Female Warriors and Resistance Activists in Berlin
A performative lecture by Anna Krenz
In 2024, a tree in Berlin was named after Irena Bobowska – a poet, artist, and resistance fighter of the Polish underground movement. The 22-year-old woman, imprisoned by the Gestapo in Poznań, wrote poems and drew until her death in Berlin by guillotine in 1942. Thanks to the efforts of Polish activists, her story has become part of Berlin’s memorial space.
In a performative lecture, artist and researcher Anna Krenz tells the stories of Bobowska and two other extraordinary women who were active in the resistance in Berlin: Jadwiga Neumann and her comrade Stefania Przybył. Neumann offered her apartment for conspiratorial meetings and intelligence discussions, before being arrested and executed in Plötzensee. Her story fell into oblivion. Przybył, sentenced to death, made a spectacular escape from Moabit prison, leaving her sister behind in the cell.
The lecture addresses strategies for remembering Polish women in German memorial culture, as well as the work of Anna Krenz, who brings their stories back into the public space through artistic interventions.
Part 2:
“Leaving Auschwitz”
A film by Jakob Weingartner
Production: Menda Yek Germany, Margitta Steinbach, Esther Bernsen (2024)
Margitta Steinbach (AMCHA Germany e.V. and founder of the association Menda Yek e.V.) travels with the members of her association to Poland to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site.
It is not only the older Sinti who want to return once more to the place of their ancestors’ annihilation to comprehend the horror their families endured. Their daughters and friends of the same age also join them, seeking identity and hope amidst the horrors of the past, the present, and their own future.
The documentary film “Leaving Auschwitz” explores the role of familial memory in remembering the victims of the Holocaust. Margitta Steinbach, the film’s initiator and producer, fights for recognition in German remembrance culture through her community work.
Part 3:
“We Always Lived in Fear, Even in Our Dreams.”
Sigrid Grajek reads selected texts by radio announcer, lesbian, and survivor Eva Siewert
Eva Siewert (1907–1994) was a German journalist, writer, and radio announcer. In the 1930s, she worked as the chief announcer at Radio Luxembourg and wrote for various newspapers. Due to her Jewish heritage, homosexuality, and critical remarks about the regime, she was persecuted, arrested, and imprisoned during the Nazi era.
In 1938, Siewert met Alice Carlé, with whom she had a close relationship. In 1943, Carlé was deported to Auschwitz and murdered. This loss profoundly influenced Siewert’s life and writing. However, Eva Siewert’s work remained largely unnoticed for a long time. To preserve her work and fate from being forgotten, the Magnus Hirschfeld Society initiated the digital memorial project In Memory of Eva Siewert. It provides biographical insights and makes her work visible again.
In the third part of the event, Sigrid Grajek will read selected texts by Eva Siewert.
Discussion
Afterwards, we invite you to a conversation with Anna Krenz, Margitta Steinbach, Sigrid Grajek, and Raimund Wolfert (co-initiator of the project In Memory of Eva Siewert), moderated by Shelly Kupferberg. Here, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and share your thoughts.
Participants
Born in 1976 in Poznań, Poland, artist, architect, author, and activist Anna Krenz has been living in Berlin since 2003. She is the founder of the collective Dziewuchy Berlin and the association Ambasada Polek e.V. Since 2001, she has been collaborating with the Danish Centre for Renewable Energy – Folkecenter for Renewable Energy on sustainable development projects. Anna Krenz is part of the women’s project studio Sinus_3, which combines architecture, ecology, visual arts, and the design of public spaces. From 2003 to 2012, she co-directed the ZERO Gallery in Berlin. Together with Ewa Maria Slaska and Jemek Jemowit, she conceived and realized the Open Space “Liberty, Equality, Solidarność” at BERLIN GLOBAL.
Born in 1963, Sigrid Grajek is a cabaret artist and actress. Grajek worked as an actress in the independent scene, was a guest at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven from 1997 to 2001, and was a member of the Berliner Brett’l cabaret ensemble from 1995 to 2011. Since 1998, she has been performing with her comedy character Coco Lorès, which she presents in various variety and stage programs. Sigrid Grajek’s signature role is that of “Claire Waldoff,” famous for hits like “Wer schmeisst denn da mit Lehm?” In 2007, she conceived the program “Claire Waldoff: Ich will aber gerade vom Leben singen…” on the occasion of the artist’s 50th death anniversary. In 2020, she followed with the program “BERLIN. The 1920s – A City in a Frenzy.”
For the digital project “In Memory of Eva Siewert” by the Magnus Hirschfeld Society, Grajek recorded a total of six texts by Eva Siewert. She vividly brings to life what was previously only accessible on paper.
Margitta Steinbach is one of the founders of the association Menda Yek e.V. and a project staff member at AMCHA Germany e.V.
Since 2021, Steinbach has been overseeing the area of “Sinti People and Transgenerational Trauma” as a project staff member at AMCHA Germany e.V.
Margitta Steinbach belongs to the Sinti community and is the grandchild of survivors of the Berlin-Marzahn and Magdeburg Holzweg forced labour camps. In 2022, Steinbach, along with other descendants of the two forced labour camps, founded the association Menda Yek e.V. (“One of Us”). The association deals with the psychosocial consequences of the Holocaust for Sinti People, focusing on unresolved trauma. A key aspect of their work is ensuring that the relatives of affected families are actively involved in all processes of commemorative work, following the motto: “Nothing about us, without us.”
Born in 1963, Raimund Wolfert is a freelance lecturer and collaborator with the Magnus Hirschfeld Society in Berlin. Wolfert is the author of numerous publications on the history of homosexuality. His most recent publication (as editor, together with Oranna Dimmig and Claudia Schoppmann) is titled: “Back then, we realized that staying meant a life-threatening danger. Eva Siewert and Alice Carlé, a love during the Shoah” (Publications of the German Resistance Memorial Center, Series B: Sources and Testimonies, 14). Berlin: Lukas Verlag, 2025.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1974, Shelly Kupferberg grew up in West Berlin. She studied journalism, music, and theatre studies. In addition to numerous contributions for ARD, she has been writing for cultural, literary, and social magazines for 30 years. She works as a freelance editor and presenter for Deutschlandfunk Kultur and hosts daily cultural programs on rbb’s radio3. Besides her regular live radio shows, she moderates concerts, readings, conferences, and events for cultural institutions and festivals. In autumn 2022, her literary debut “Isidor” was published by Diogenes. It appeared on the SPIEGEL bestseller list and has been translated into several languages.
Her thematic focuses include not only culture but also social issues such as education, cultural mediation, civil society, democracy and participation, discrimination, migration topics, provenance research, and remembrance culture.
The event is part of the city-wide theme week “80 Years End of War – Liberation of Europe from National Socialism,” initiated and funded by the State of Berlin, realized by Kulturprojekte Berlin with numerous partners.
