The quest for identity implies looking at the present and the past. Fragmentation and piecing together a puzzle reveal a part of German history while the photograph remains missing.
Artist: Steffi Drerup
Project: Ichfolgedessen
I almost got sent to a concentration camp, he said.
Anna and I wanted to get married, but they wouldn’t let us.
Why? I said.
Because. My mother was Jewish and Anna was Aryan.
So what happened?
We were told to stop seeing each other, but we didn’t. Someone tipped them off, I had to go to the Gestapo headquarter and was questioned about our relationship.
I was silent.
They asked me whether I was still seeing Anna. Still silent.
Of course I said no. But they wanted proof. I took a photo out of my wallet, a portrait of my cousin Irene. On the back she had written ‚To my dearest Friedrich. With love, Irene‘.
They believed that she was my new lover and I walked away unharmed, he said.
Wait a minute, he said and got up.
Here, this is it, Irene’s photo.
I watched as he took the small black-and-white photo from his wallet in 1996.
© Steffi Drerup
Curator / Editor : Massimiliano Corteselli