Companion projects

Several projects were developed in parallel with the renewal of the Austrian exhibition at Auschwitz.

The film “Der Schönste Tag” (“The Most Beautiful Day”)

The film Der Schönste Tag, subsidised by the National Fund, and the series Sprich Mit Mir (“Talk to Me”) take viewers on a documentary film journey. Dialogues between contemporary witnesses and their grandchildren reveal the legacy of a generation that, against all odds, survived the Holocaust. It is a stark warning: The unimaginable can happen again.

Postcards project “Austria / Auschwitz. Drawings by Jan Kupiec 1945”

In the Year of Remembrance 2015 the National Fund and the Coordination Office for the renewal of the Austrian exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum presented a postcard edition, published by Birgit Johler, Albert Lichtblau, Christiane Rothländer, Barbara Staudinger and Hannes Sulzenbacher.

During the course of their research for the new exhibition the curatorial and scientific team came across a collection of postcards depicting Austrian scenery in the holdings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. On the back of the postcards are scenes from the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, drawn by the Polish Auschwitz survivor Jan Kupiec following his release from Mauthausen/Ebensee in 1945.

The curatorial team: “The 13 postcards which have photographs of Austrian tourist attractions on one side and motifs and scenes from Auschwitz and Birkenau on the other physically manifest the simultaneous proximity and distance between Austria and Auschwitz. By publishing these postcards in Austria, we are making a contribution towards increasing the proximity of these two places in the collective memory.”

The publication of this special find also renders the basic idea of the curatorial team – to place events in Auschwitz and Austria in juxtaposition – in visual form.

Hannah Lessing: “I am very glad that National Fund sponsorship has been able to make the publication of this unusual edition possible, connecting these seemingly fully disassociated places with one another in such an unsettling way.”

The postcard edition can be obtained from in exchange for a voluntary donation. The donation goes to the association "HEMAYAT - Care Center for Victims of Torture and War".

Click here to order and download the postcard edition.