Exhibition "Forgotten Places of NS Terror" – a photographic and cartographic investigation by Anni Seitinger and Chri Strassegger
Exhibition "Forgotten Places of NS Terror" – a photo and cartographic trace search by Anni Seitinger and Chri Strassegger
Exhibition duration: May 9 – July 6, 2025
Daily from 09:00 – 17:00
In 2025, the end of World War II and the NS regime in May 1945 will be commemorated for the 80th time. In the last weeks before liberation, East Styria became the scene of heavy fighting between the Wehrmacht and the advancing Red Army. In the “shadow of war,” crimes in the final phase occurred in the region, claiming Jewish-Hungarian forced laborers, deserters, political opponents, and resistant individuals as victims.
In the districts of Hartberg and Weiz, especially the “SS special unit Kirchner” rampaged from early April until the end of the war. In Birkfeld, the unit abducted and murdered the pastry chef Karl Jung and the doctor Emil Teuschel; in Gasen, they claimed the priest Johann Grahsl as a victim. The execution of alleged deserters in Sallegg and Oberfeistritz was also attributed to the unit, before it moved on to Hartberg, where it violently attacked the civilian population in the fight against a local resistance group. Even on May 8, the SS unit murdered five people during its retreat between Winkl-Boden and Oed near Birkfeld.
In the post-war period, a department of the state gendarmerie command investigated the SS special unit and associated it with the murder of a total of 29 people. In a summary sketch created in 1954, the survey department marked the crime scenes of the offenses. Based on this historical map, parts of which are now available in copied form at the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW), artist Anni Seitinger and photographer Chri Strassegger located these places, where today there is often little remembrance of the crimes committed there. They documented the crime scenes photographically and thereby reconstructed a topography of NS terror in the region. Contemporary witnesses, descendants, and historians provided valuable assistance in this process.
At the vernissage in KOMM.ST LAB, Günther Friesinger and Georg Gratzer will discuss with the two their approaches and experiences regarding their photographic trace search. Thomas Stoppacher and Marco Jandl will complement the artistic reflections with historical scientific explanations regarding the final phase crimes in East Styria. The two historians are collaborating with Graz contemporary historian Heimo Halbrainer on the publication of an anthology titled “NS Regime, Persecution, and Resistance in East Styria 1938–1945,” which will be published by CLIO and presented in the fall during the KOMM.ST festival in Anger.
Heimo Halbrainer/Marco Jandl/Thomas Stoppacher (eds.): NS Regime, Persecution, and Resistance in East Styria 1938–1945. Approximately 280 pages with numerous illustrations (ISBN: 978-3-903425-26-2), CLIO: Graz 2025, Euro 29.00
A mediation program for school classes will be offered for the exhibition. Contact and appointment arrangements via marco.jandl@uni-graz.at or 0660/3444332
Date and time
Event location
Anger - KOMM.St Lab Anger