The exhibition "Surviving, Witnessing, Telling" was officially opened at the exhibition space of the Centre Berthelot in Lyon, dedicated to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. The event, organized with the support of CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France), the Christian-Jewish Association and the City of Lyon, brought together high-ranking representatives of institutions and artists whose works bear witness to the traumas of the past. Among the twelve selected authors, the works of Vladimir Veličković, Zoran Music i Zlatka Glamočak, whose works were selected with the help of the Ories gallery.
Remembering the victims and the trial that shook France
The exhibition is part of a wider programme that also includes the unveiling of the Lyon Holocaust Memorial, a reminder of the deportation of 16.000 Lyon citizens to Auschwitz. The city's tragic past is also symbolised by the figure Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon", the Gestapo chief directly responsible for the torture and death of over 6.000 people, including a hero of the French Resistance Jeanne MulanIt is interesting to note that Jean Moulin's secretary was Daniel Cordier, later a gallerist who introduced the world of great art Dado Đurić.
Barbi, sentenced to death in absentia in 1953, evaded justice for a long time under the protection of American intelligence services and the Bolivian dictatorial regime, and in 1987 was sentenced to life imprisonment - the first case in France after the abolition of the death penalty.
His trial became a media spectacle: 106 witnesses, 116 prosecutorial organizations, and 900 journalists followed the showdown with the past. Two legal giants clashed in court: Jacques Verges, the "devil's advocate" who defended Barbie, and Rolan Dima, future Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the Constitutional Court of France, also known as the lawyer of the Marković family in the Marković-Delon trial, who represented the victims. The trial confirmed that the crimes did not have a statute of limitations, and the US later apologized for helping Barbie escape through the "rat channels".
Art as a voice that survives
The works in the exhibition carry a strong symbolic message. Vladimir Velickovic, a French academic born in Serbia, is presented with drawings that explore themes of suffering. Zoran Music exhibits works from the cycle "We are not the last", created in Auschwitz, while Zlatko Glamocak gives physical form to resistance against violence with his relief "Contra fatum".
"This is recognition of my 40 years of work on the subject of victimhood and crime. Through the universal language of art, we bear witness to what one person can do to another," Glamočak emphasized.
The city, which survived the terror of Barbie's Gestapo, is trying through this exhibition to preserve the memory of the victims and remind them that justice is possible even after decades. As he wrote Richard Zelmati, president of CRIF, in the preface to the catalog: "Memory is not an archive, but a bridge between the past and the future."
The exhibition "Survive, Witness, Tell" is open to the public until March 15, carrying the message that art, like history, has the power to uncover the truth and build bridges of tolerance.
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