Oberstaufen - The traveling exhibition »Beloved Gabi.
A girl from the Allgäu - murdered in Auschwitz «comes to Oberstaufen.
The traveling exhibition “Beloved Gabi.
A girl from the Allgäu - murdered in Auschwitz ”will stop at the Dietrich Bonhoeffer parish hall in Oberstaufen from October 24th to November 14th.
The exhibition is based on the research of the Allgäu author and filmmaker Leo Hiemer and focuses on the fate of little Gabriele Schwarz, who was a victim of the National Socialist racial madness.
Gabi grew up on a farm in Stiefenhofen.
She was only five years old.
When the Nazi terror and reprisals against the Jewish fellow citizens in Germany took on ever more dramatic forms, Gabi's mother, Charlotte Margarete Eckart, a Jew from Augsburg, brought her child, who was only a few weeks old, to a foster family in the Allgäu.
Safe, as she said.
Gabi is considered a "full Jew"
Gabriele Schwarz, who was born in Marktoberdorf, known as Gabi, had happy days on the small farm of the Therese and Josef Aichele family, who had five children of their own. At least that is shown by the many black and white photos that one of the Aichele daughters took after Gabi's mother brought a camera with her on one of her many visits. Gabi feeds the chickens, Gabi pokes the sheep, Gabi helps with the haymaking ... Images of a happy childhood.
For this exhibition, the small photos turned into large-format prints that tell more than words from the short, carefree life of little Gabi.
The dark sides of this terrible time are highlighted by the highlight-like depictions of the persecution of the Jews in Germany and the desperate attempts by Gabi's mother to save herself and her daughter.
She herself had converted to the Catholic faith and had been baptized.
Gabi was also baptized after she was born.
But that didn't help.
Gabi is regarded by those in power as a “full Jew”.
"Gabi lives as long as we remember her."
At the end of 1942, Gabi was torn from this small, intact world, in which she grew up in a sheltered state, and was initially deported to a collection camp in Berg am Laim near Munich.
In March 1943 the five-year-old was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there.
Until recently, Therese and Josef Aichele had tried to bring "their child" back.
Vain.
What remains are the memories of the little girl, her children's shoes, a few toys - the camera and the photos that can be seen in the exhibition.
The exhibition closes with the words: "Gabi lives as long as we remember her."
Contemporary witnesses report
Contemporary witnesses report in video sequences how they experienced those years in Stiefenhofen and its surroundings.
The Nazi terror also quickly got its grip on the “country” and its villages.
The exhibition also wants to give space to other Nazi persecution stories from the respective region.
People who know of such stories are given the opportunity to share this knowledge.
There is a “reminder café” for this in the framework program of the traveling exhibition.
