that Center for Persecuted Arts Loved from April 9-13, 2026 together with the museum's sponsors on a four-day Study and remembrance trip to Krakow and Auschwitz. The occasion was the opening of the exhibition “Marian Ruzamski. The art of remembrance” on Thursday, April 9, 2026, in the traditional Palace of Arts in the heart of Krakow.

The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Tarnowski Castle Museum in Tarnobrzeg and the museum Bunkier Sztuki Krakow and was supported by the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation, the Gerd Kaimer Citizens' Foundation Solingen and the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Mayor of Krakow, Aleksander Miszalski, and the German Consul General Holger Mahnicke have assumed patronage. The exhibition was organized by Ina Brandes, Minister of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia opened.

A bilingual German-Polish catalog accompanies the exhibition and comprehensively documents Ruzamski's life and work.

Before the opening of the exhibition, the group was led by Sylvia Löhrmann, chairwoman of the Sponsors' Association of Center for Persecuted Arts, and Dr. Jürgen Kaumkötter, Director of Center for Persecuted Arts, in the museum Bunkier Sztuki greets. Delfina Jałowik, director of the museum, presented the exhibition “Thank you for my work,” in which artists deal with the appreciation of their work in the art world.

Tymofii Mokhnachuk and Olena Paliushko from the Zdolbuniv Museum in Ukraine were also welcomed at this location. They accompanied the group in Krakow and used the excursion for a first meeting with Daniela Tobias, president of the Education and Memorial Association Max Leven-Zentrum Solingen. Both institutions are working on a joint project about Fritz Gräbe, a Solingen engineer who saved Jews in the Zdolbuniv region during the Second World War.

The study trip took us on Friday to the site of the former Plaszow concentration camp, on which a museum is due to open in January 2027. Director Marta Śmietana talked about the challenges of making it possible to experience an area that has been used as a leisure area in urban Krakow in recent decades. Its openness should be maintained as much as possible, but at the same time the history of the place should be conveyed and the dignity of the place as a former Jewish cemetery but also as a mass grave from the Nazi era should be ensured.

On the advice of Delfina Jałowik, we were inspired by the Polish-Australian artist Dorota Mytych received in her studio. Using painting, video, sculpture, installation and performance, she questions common narratives and the political, social and personal structures that underlie them. Her installation “The small” was shown at MOCAK in 2025.

The group then visited the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Oskar Schindler's former factory. The manager Adam Budak welcomed us there. Curators Krzysztof Pijarski and Anna Voswinckel presented the exhibition to us “Speak, Volumes” by Annette Kelm about the books burned and banned by the Nazis. Accompanied by a guided tour with local knowledge, it went through the former Kasimierz Jewish Quarter back to the old town.

On Saturday, the tour group had Auschwitz main camp an intensive four-hour guided tour. Ina Brandes, Minister of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, laid a wreath in the name of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia at the memorial at the former shooting ground. At the youth meeting center, we met Christoph Heubner, Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee. He showed us the Pavilion with paintings by Gerhard Richter, who deals artistically with the secret photographs of prisoner Alex Errera. They are considered to be the only visual testimonies of the Sonderkommandos.

The fourth day of our trip took us to Auschwitz II Birkenau camp. The Germans' system, which was thoroughly organized down to the last detail, was matched by the prisoners' will to survive, who had not been selected immediately upon arrival, developed strategies on a small scale, even courageously attempted hopeless resistance or, as Alex Errera, documented the atrocities they had experienced for posterity.

More impressions With photos by Daniela Tobias, you can find in this album.

A detailed Report from the City of Krakow With more photos of the exhibition opening, you can find on this website.

Deutschlandfunk Kultur made an article on the program “Conclusion” on April 13: “Saved pictures: Krakow shows the work of Marian Ruzamski after 100 years”