Erfurt: Exhibition commemorates the places where the Nazi books were burned in 1933

The “crime scenes” can be seen in the traveling exhibition as photographs – mostly not with the historical motif, but as the places look today. There is also plenty of background information on the rise of the National Socialists, author biographies and examples from exile literature. Schenck himself is a big book fan, as he says. “I did as a kid Erich Kaestner and some authors read the then by the burns were affected,” he says.

The German Horticultural Museum in the egapark Erfurt was happy to accept the traveling exhibition on its premises, as Ulrike Richter from the Board of Directors explains: “Especially when intellectual property is being destroyed, every cultural institution should draw attention to it. It’s simply part of our job, even if it is of course it has nothing to do with the horticultural topic at first,” says Richter.

Because only a few steps away from the Horticultural Museum is the place where books were burned in Erfurt at the end of June 1933. Two years ago, the city council decided to create a place of remembrance on this site. So far, that hasn’t happened, even if according to Richter there are now several drafts. But maybe the exhibition is a further incentive to make the egapark visible as one of many “burned places”.

Editorial processing: Lilly Günthner