Last chance to visit the exhibition, with the opportunity to take a guided tour, exchange ideas, and talk with the artists.
A mill, a shelter for strangers, a children’s home, and then a care facility for foreign children. What remains when the physical traces are nothing but ruins, nature reclaims the site, and eyewitnesses fall silent? Forgotten places. Maurinmühle near Carlow is one such forgotten place. Historian Lukas Augustat has researched the Maurinmühle children’s home and published his findings under the title “Maurinmühle in Mecklenburg: Nazi Children’s Home and ‘Care Facility for Foreign Children.’” Nevertheless, much of what happened at Maurinmühle remains hidden, yet it leaves traces in a society that created voids where memories could have been. The ORTSZEITEN collective is dedicated to addressing these gaps—the horrific conditions at Maurinmühle when it became a “care facility for foreign children” under the Nazi regime, and where children and infants of foreign forced-laborers were “nursed to death.”
The exhibition series “ORTSZEIT – Maurinmühle” picks up where academic research leaves off and approaches these events on an emotional level through the perspectives of the artists. The current exhibition at Rehna Monastery is the sixth exhibition on Maurinmühle. Why does this particular place continue to haunt the ORTSZEIT collective?
“Because it is shocking what totalitarian systems do to us as human beings—that we even react with indifference to the suffering of children and infants. The example of Maurinmühle shows—as is the case everywhere in communities large and small—that there are people who cultivate their own interpretation of the Nazi era. These narratives often do not align with the facts. The traces of that time have faded today. Yet the present shows that they have not disappeared. The traces of that time are making themselves heard. The past influences the present. We can counter this with what makes us human: our compassion and the attitude that stems from it.” – Annette Czerny
The art and thematic exhibition “ORTSZEIT-Maurinmühle” can be viewed at the Klostermuseum only until its closing event on
November 1. On November 1, admission to the exhibition is free, and many of the 17 artists will be on site from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors will have the opportunity to ask questions, engage in conversation, take a guided tour, and view the exhibition one last time. This is the sixth and final exhibition on Maurinmühle.
