KZ Buchenwald as a theatrical stage/ Weimar as the audience

by Vassilis Kitsos

View from the concentration camp to the North

1^st act: Carefully set stage

The Nazi decision to locate the concentration camp on the hill, is probably primarily bound to technical and military matters. But a detail related to the topography of the site and its association with the urban center of Weimar, could be described with theatrical terms: The camp, almost (yet not) on top of the hill, is overlooking to the North, turning its back to Weimar. Once in the camp, one has left Weimar behind, and vice-versa: this is an intentionally hidden, secret topos, set to operate in the shadow.

Space and Memory

by Julie Köpper

One of the places I got to know first in Weimar was the old cemetery. As I lived at a friend’s place in the neighbourhood to the west of the cemetery, I walked through it several times a day going up and down the hill to the university.

by Juan Mejia

Along the trail from north to south that a wanderer must take when arriving in the city center from the central train station, the first impressions of what the city is start to build up. A visitor finds his way accompanied by two story buildings, probably constructed in the late eighteen hundreds; residences, offices, restaurants and cafés with terraces that face the sidewalk where beer, a Thüringer bratwurst or an ice cream can be bought. Suddenly, the dialogue that the pedestrian had started to develop with the street, the houses and the terraces is broken by an enormous silence. Once one stops to look at the place, one runs the risk of forgetting the previous walk and losing a sense of direction. Where am I?

Absence of War…

by Lika Sharifi Sadeghi

...Pieces of a dark stone, divided into two halves forming two stone chairs with an over human-scaled size, are located humbly in the Ilm Park in Weimar, Germany. People pass by, not all so curios to come near to have a closer look.

Jakobsplan 1: at an intersection of Weimar

 by Fung Yee YUENG
 

Paul Schneider

by Julia Müller

We enter the gateway, pass the large entrance door, walk without indirection into the garden. It's vain endeavor to get past the tall grass. Branches grow wild in my way and prevent me from getting any further in the anarchy of the wild greenery.
Paul walks past me and joins the dreaming idler in the ordered garden with the tended vegetable patch. The swing creaks even as he takes a seat on it. Everyone enjoys the last warm sunrays of autumn.

I turn back and step into the house. Paul follows me. The repercussion of my steps fractures the muteness of the hallway. I slowly climb the stairs. My hand wanders along the cold handrail.
Paul carefully blazes a trail through the crowd sitting, standing, dancing on the stairs. With red faces and glassy eyes they talk fevered and every now and then another lot raises their glasses to toast loudly to life. From above drone racing tunes and twisting shoes.

I open the door to the forsaken dwelling. In the dim mist of time, the empty rooms fell into a deep quiet sleep. There's a hint of cigarette smoke in the intensive smell of stone and wood. I stand in the middle of the former kitchen, watching the white shapes of bygone objects on the grey surface of the walls.
Paul immediately decides to enter the kitchen as he scents coffee. He takes a seat on the old wooden table. Paul carefully looks over the light blue cupboard, where old newspapers are piling up, consistent with himself. He takes one of the papers and a big sip from the cup.

Back through the welcoming emptiness of the house, the excited silence of the hallway, we leave the building and re-enter the gateway. He heads towards the streets and vanishes behind the fencing. I follow him, squeezing past the yellow posts. Standing on the sideway I glimpse his long shadow, I can't catch up with him. As I turn the corner, he's gone.