On Sunday, 10 April 2022, the Jewish Museum of Westphalen, located in Dorsten, opened a new exhibition on the Kindertransport, entitled ‘Kinder auf der Flucht: Kindertransporte 1938-1939’. The exhibition runs until 3 July 2022. Visit the exhibition website here.
Dr Bea Lewkowicz was invited to open the exhibition and to have a conversation with the Canadian artist Mia Weinberg about her installation, which is part of the exhibition.
The exhibition focuses on the lives of six Kinder from North Rhine Westphalia, among them Kurt Marx BEM, born in Cologne and Harvey Ottman, born 15 km away from Dorsten in a town called Gladbeck. The AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive provided the exhibition with Kurt’s and Harvey’s interview transcripts, photographs and a short film commissioned by the museum.
In a separate space on the ground floor of the museum, Mia Weinberg displayed her installation entitled ‘Fractured Legacy’ which consists of projected images a map of the hometown of her father, Werther, and the house he grew up in, sound recordings of her father’s voice, her own voice, bird sounds from Werther, and pixilated photographs of her ancestors. The largest photographic installation is a photograph of her grandmother’s house, which is cut up in many squares, which are suspended from the ceiling and floating in space.
The impact of the Kindertransport is still felt by subsequent generations. The voice of the second-generation artist together with the presentation of the six life stories, among them Dame Stephanie Shirley, who came from Essen, makes this a powerful and unique exhibition, with clear contemporary relevance.
