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The darkest place: our report from Auschwitz

The first in-house production made possible by European Utopia e.V. is set in Auschwitz. It made the front page of the daily newspaper Haaretz in Israel and the FAZ feuilleton in Germany.

© Dirk Bruniecki

Volunteers in Hell: Paulina Byrska, Tahel Goldsmith, Layla Amador, Suzanne Grimmer

In 2019, we founded European Utopia e.V. to overcome borders through quality journalism and to stand up for a better Europe without nationalism. Our first in-house production has conquered several barriers at once - including the EU’s external border. The reportage by Niclas Müller and photographer Dirk Bruniecki is about young people from all over the world who work as volunteers for the memorial.

© haaretz.com

Our story on haaretz.com ...
... and in the FAZ

The Israeli daily Haaretz printed our production on its front page on Holocaust Memorial Day (online here). In Germany, it appeared in the arts section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 11 February (online here). Dirk and Niclas were volunteers themselves: they donated their fees to European Utopia e.V. so that we can make more stories of this kind possible for té magazine.

Why Auschwitz? Because a better Europe is only conceivable if it learns from its catastrophic history. Anyone who thinks about utopias should know their opposite: the dystopia that the German state made a reality in Auschwitz. What extreme nationalists, anti-Semites and racists set in motion here marks the maximum of contempt for humanity. In Auschwitz, 1.1 million people were killed industrially, 200,000 of them were children, 90 percent Jews. 

© Dirk Bruniecki

Volunteer Tahel Goldsmith, 33, born in Jerusalem

The basic idea for the reportage was to look for rays of hope for the future in this dark place. Dirk and Niclas found them - in the form of the four young women from Israel, the USA and Poland who are working free of charge to continue the culture of remembrance. The next generation does not forget, it continues the work of the Holocaust survivors.

Read the whole report here on faz.net

And here in English on haaretz.com

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