#WatchOutHstry

#WatchOutHstry Photo Competition

#WatchOutHistory

When remembering the crimes of the National Socialists there are still many white spots and untold stories. With this year's photo competition, we are putting the spotlight on exactly these blank spaces. In line with our annual theme #WatchOutHstry, we were looking for motifs that highlight lesser known places or stories of NS injustice.

Winning photos of the #WatchOutHstry Photo Competition 2023

In the misty morning light, two mushrooms stand on a meadow. Barracks can be seen in the background.

1st place (I) | Morning atmosphere in autumn on the grounds of the former prisoner of war camp STALAG X B Sandbostel. This photografically outstanding image of the memorial site invites reflection: a place of crime with symbols of new beginnings, but also of danger of being neglected.

An old woman sits on the edge of a bed and looks seriously into the camera.

1st place (II) | "Ms. Mariška recalls and speaks of the soldiers, her parents, and siblings during the times of WWII, but also of the hunger and of what a true gypsy celebration looked like and about the life in a village where you belong to an ethnic minority. Today her memories have become muddled, one moment she talked about girls hiding in the woods, then about her loneliness and then again about how all of her body aches." – Barbora Haviarová. A painting-like, touching photo of "Ms Mariška" who survived the Romani Holocaust in the Slovak Republic as a child.

Several ruins of large houses stand in a densely vegetated landscape.

2nd place | "The picture, taken with a camera drone, shows the ruins of several (sub)officers' quarters of the camp at Ban-Saint-Jean, the 'Rose of the Maginot Line'. None of the houses has a roof anymore; vegetation has long since taken over." – Marianne Spiller. Increasingly decaying houses that were used by the Wehrmacht and in whose surroundings up to 20,000 Soviet forced laborers are said to have perished. A photo as an invitation to deal with this unresolved – and directly threatened by a construction project – history.

Other submissions

Through a dilapidated archway you can see a wasteland in the foreground and behind it the synagogue with its two ornate towers.

The Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest is the largest in Europe. In 1944, it was part of the Jewish ghetto and served as a shelter for many hundreds Jews. Over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold are buried in the synagogue's courtyard.

A smiling old woman holding two pears in her hand.

Maria Antonovna Galuzova is an optimistic and cheerful woman. "You only need to see her smile and her eyes once to know that everything will be all right in the end". Considering what she has gone through, this is not a matter of course: in 1944, Maria was deported with her mother and two brothers from a small village near Minsk to a German concentration camp. Yet she never lost her inner strength and confidence, making her a great inspiration for her photographer Ina Shkurko who met her on a project of the EVZ foundation.

An old woman with a headscarf, weather-beaten skin, and a walking stick sits on a simple wooden bench in front of a tree; next to her, laundry on a line blows in the wind.

The photo shows 87-year-old Maria Nevmerzhytska in the garden of her native village of Luchanky in the Zhytomyr oblast of Ukraine. The picture was taken when she was talking about her memories of the Second World War. Luchanky was burned down by the Nazis in 1942 during a reprisal operation and 255 houses were destroyed. Maria, her mother, two sisters and more than 120 villagers were deported to the south of Ukraine, where they were forced to work. The fate of Maria's father is still unknown. She is one of the last inhabitants of Luchanky who remembers this tragedy.

An elderly man in a suit and cap stands in front of a memorial stone decorated with flowers and a menorah.

The fact that Samuel "Mitya" Bykov survived is completely unlikely. For 54,000 people, mostly Jewish women, children and old people, Bohdanivka, once a small Jewish town, was to become a mass grave in the winter of 1941/42. Mitya is one of the 127 people who survived the death camp. He comes to Bohdanivka every autumn and always brings with him other Holocaust survivors, journalists and people engaged in remembrance work. These places deserve our attention, today and tomorrow – against the oblivion.

Stories and projects on the theme of the year

  • Annual topic

    #WatchOutHstry

    Illuminating gaps, telling unheard stories, showing connections: Under this motto, the EVZ Foundation will bring hitherto lesser-known events, places and victim biographies relating to the crimes of the National Socialists closer in 2023.

Winning photos of 2020's competition

1st place | The picture was taken during a one-day summer excursion organized for older participants as part of the project mentioned below. The project has been taking place for several years, in 2020 in smaller groups due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The photo shows 96-year-old Krzysztof with an alpaca, which is used as a therapy animal for trauma and anxiety patients. Krzysztof enjoyed the trip and meeting alpacas. It was the first time he saw and experienced alpacas - he was delighted and grateful. | Project: "Help, awareness, dignity - home visits by volunteers and group activities for lonely elderly people".

2nd place (I) | Young activists from Melitopol (Ukraine) gained experience in the revitalization of industrial buildings in Germany at German-Ukrainian youth encounters. The project aims to help young people to become initiators and actors of change on a local level. The photo is a mirror for the hunger for exploration, reincarnation and work on our personal and social wellbeing.

2nd place (II) | The angel is a symbol of St. Petersburg. During World War II, the destruction and associated restoration made this angel a symbol of resistance. Well over a million people lost their lives during the Leningrad Blockade between 1941 and 1944. Memories of this are extremely different in Russia and Germany: the disappearance of the crime on the one hand and the stylization of liberation on the other form a rift between the two countries. The play sponsored by the EVZ Foundation is an attempt to overcome this rift. German and Russian actors worked together on the text, which was created by Moscow theater maker Elena Gremina from documentary material. | Photo: Ofa Feldman, sent in by Lucia Bontjer on behalf of "Drama Panorama", play "67/871" (67 stories from 871 days of blockade).