Kaunas 1941,
A photographic intallation

Since 2016, the photographer Rainer Viertlböck, the recipient of numerous awards, has taken on the task of capturing all concentration camps with his camera, as well as their satellite camps and many execution sites, under the working title “Structures of Extermination.” The images convey the scope of the Nazi camp and extermination system in an impressive way. With this project, Viertlböck records these places and their conversions, their oblivion and their suppression and thus preserves the last remaining traces of their history. In an installation in the foyer of the Jewish Museum Munich Viertlböck is now showing two powerful works on “Fort IX” in Kaunas.

In October 1941, the national socialist government began systematic deportations of people to the so called eastern territories of the German Reich. This concerned people who were considered as Jews according to national socialist racial ideology. The first of such transports in Munich left on November 20th, 1941 from Milbertshofen. The 998 deported people, out of which 978 were from Munich, were informed they would be deployed as labor forces. Instead, they were deported from the barracks camp in the Milbertshofen district of Munich to Fort IX on November 20, 1941. After arrival, they were put into the cells of Fort IX, together with people of two further transports from Berlin and Frankfurt am Main.
On November 25th, 1941 the deported people from Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main were shot by Einsatzkommando (special task force) 3 of Einsatzgruppe A under the command of SS-officer Karl Jäger in the moats of Fort IX.

The exhibition forms part of a commemorative project on Jews deported from Munich. Click here for more information about the series.

Project Coordination: Ayleen Winkler
Exhibition Design: Stefan Acs, Pendart