The answer to this question is undoubtedly the exhibition of 30 photographs by Martin Blume, which can be viewed at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Oświęcim until August 2018.
In the years 2009-2014 the artist from Germany, who died two years ago, took a series of pictures of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, on the basis of which his exhibition was created. This work had a specific objective: to preserve the memory of the Shoah and various other mass murders organized by Nazi Germany in the consciousness of the future generation.
Martin Blume was one of the masters of large-format black and white photography. His works are found in collections in the United States and Europe, published in albums and presented in exhibitions. Simultaneously, while developing his skills in the field of photography, Blume also completed a degree in psychology, which greatly influenced his way of work.
The artist produced deliberately blurry pictures of terror from the ruins of the extermination camp. The lack of focus is not a result of photo processing. This is how the pictures were taken, and that is the impression the artist transfers to the viewers. In this way, Blume’s psychological astuteness gained a new access to the topic, through which he encourages the viewers to seek their own ways of reflection on the Shoah and the Nazi machinery of destruction.
The artist's statement two years ago during a video presentation testifies to how he felt about the topic and how deeply committed he was in the work of creating the photographs. “I knew how difficult this topic was and the responsibility that weighed on me for taking up this topic. (...) Whenever I set about such a project, I become transformed during its implementation; I am up to my ears, and there is no turning back for me. I personate the prisoners’ situation with the help of pictures and try to feel it. It is often very difficult to bear. (...) I was shocked and swept off-balance at the magnitude of industrialized genocide. I imagined it abstractly, thanks to literature, but it was incomprehensible to me. It was here that I finally understood the entire dimension. And I was left speechless. And to be left speechless is part of my work.”