Spots of Light – To Be a Woman During the Holocaust

Austrian Federal Chancellery (03/16/2009)

Under the aegis of Federal President Heinz Fischer, the international exhibition “Spots of Light – To Be a Woman During the Holocaust,” curated by Yehudit Inbar of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, is shown at Vienna’s Nestroyhof Theatre –Hamakom (Vienna’s 2nd district, Nestroyplatz 1) from April 1 to May 31, 2009. Jewish women during the Holocaust applied their minds at a place that threatened to deprive them of their minds, brought strength to a place where they had no strength, where they marched all the way to death and invested every additional moment of life with meaning.

The exhibition “Light Spots“ attempts to present the human history concealed behind the historical facts and to create space for the unique voice of women based on forty-five various stories. The visitor should always bear in mind that these events and incidents reflect an abyss of evil reaching unparalleled dimensions. More than three million women and girls were killed during the Holocaust. NS ideology called for the annihilation of the entire Jewish “race”. Women endowed with fertility were a main target of persecution. The forty-five stories of women encompass subjects like love, motherhood, caring for others, life as a partisan, everyday life, friendship, religion, food and art.

Screenings of outstanding films (e.g. by Anja Salomanowitz, Yaron Silberman and Michael Deutsch) accompany the program, presenting the various fates of Jewish women.