“Shades of Black” – Walter Preisser’s Prints of Violence in Concentration Camps

Plötzensee, Luckau, Wuhlheide, Sachsenhausen, Groß-Rosen, Auschwitz, Buna-Monowitz, Gleiwitz, “Dora”, “Turmalin”, Neustadt in Holstein – these were all stages in the six-year imprisonment of the Jewish artist Walter Preisser, which began with his arrest on 4 December 1938 and ended only with the bombing of the Bay of Lübeck by British fighter planes on 3 May 1945. Twelve prints created by Preisser after his liberation, shown until 23 November 2025 in the exhibition “On Displaying Violence: First Exhibitions on the Nazi Occupation in Europe, 1945–1948”  at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, bear witness to the violent experiences of those years.