Following the suspected Islamist attack last Thursday, the National Socialist Documentation Center canceled the ceremonial opening of the installation “We are here” by artist Talya Feldman on Tuesday evening. The exhibition will feature videos to which relatives of victims of racist and anti-Semitic attacks have recorded texts. At the request of the artist and the relatives who were supposed to take part in the opening, a joint decision was made to forego the event, explained a spokeswoman for the National Socialist Documentation Center.
The 18-year-old attacker’s shots at the documentation center and the nearby Israeli consulate general would place too much emotional strain on those involved in the planned opening ceremony, said the spokeswoman. There was great understanding for this. Objective security concerns were not the reason for the cancellation. “It is very important to us that everyone involved feels safe and ready to speak to a broad public.”
Originally, the director of the NS Documentation Center, Miriam Zadoff, as well as the artist and a representative of the “Initiative Munich OEZ Erinnern” were supposed to speak. The racist attack at the Olympia shopping center on July 22, 2016, in which the right-wing extremist David S., also 18 years old at the time, murdered nine people, is part of the video installation.
As planned, this will be on display for visitors to the NS Documentation Center from Wednesday. In it, Talya Feldman recalls 15 racist attacks in Germany over the past 40 years. Among them are cases that have not yet been officially recognized as hate crimes, according to the announcement of the exhibition. The relatives of victims have recorded texts to accompany videos in which they describe their suffering and campaign for a lively and appropriate remembrance. For them, this includes memorials and renaming streets as well as the right to “be heard and seen” in order to bring about changes in politics, society, the justice system and law enforcement authorities.
