Buy the book
C A S S T L is pleased to host the first public presentation in Belgium of Juergen Teller’s book Auschwitz Birkenau, commissioned by the International Auschwitz Committee and published by Steidl. As writer Christoph Heubner has so eloquently said, “Auschwitz has been photographed so many times. And Auschwitz is so endlessly relevant because people obviously don’t learn anything”.
Shortly before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, Juergen Teller, Dovile Drizyte, and Gerhard Steidl travelled there at the invitation of Christoph Heubner, writer and Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee. They spent days walking through the memorial sites, while Teller photographed what he encountered: barracks and tracks that seem to lead to infinity; gas chambers and latrines; electric fences; drawings, photographs, and messages documenting the lives of prisoners and their deaths; but also more mundane elements such as parking signs, souvenir shops, visitors, and buses.
Everything in these images has lost its innocence—even the grass, birch trees, berries, and winter sunlight streaming through windows. Each detail captured by Teller is a trace of the world of both the victims and their perpetrators, part of the horror and reality of this 190-hectare death factory where more than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered.
Teller’s photographs preserve what remains, past and present. In his accompanying text, Heubner adds memories, quotations, and reflections drawn from his decades of encounters and conversations with survivors to a selection of the photographs. Auschwitz Birkenau is a visual atlas: a compelling inventory of memory, evidence, and history.
C A S S T L affirms that access to information, confronting the past, and engaging with difficult truths are essential to our shared humanity. Let the memory of this atrocity serve as a catalyst to bring attention to the injustices perpetrated upon any peoples.
More Information