The project Die Verleugneten is dedicated to remembering the persecution of people who were stigmatized as “asocials” or “habitual criminals” under National Socialism. This group of women, men, and young people endured immense suffering and was only recognized late as victims of National Socialism. Imprisoned in concentration camps, confined in homes and psychiatric institutions, and often forcibly sterilized, they were forgotten even after the war and excluded from compensation payments. It was only decades later, through the work of dedicated researchers and initiatives like that of Professor Dr. Frank Nonnenmacher, that their fate was acknowledged and recognized. In 2020, the German Bundestag officially decided to recognize these persecuted individuals as victims of National Socialism.
The website and traveling exhibition Die Verleugneten are the result of these efforts and part of a resolution by the German Bundestag to strengthen the commemoration of this victim group. The website, which went online in August 2022, documents the development of the traveling exhibition in the form of an online project workshop. This provides a behind-the-scenes look and makes the background of the persecution accessible to the public even before the exhibition opens. New content is regularly added, including additional biographies, interactive depictions of persecution paths, and a chronology of the decades-long struggle for recognition. The traveling exhibition will open in Berlin in the summer of 2024 and will subsequently be shown at the Flossenbürg concentration camp memorial and other locations in Germany and Austria.
In my role as Art Director at the agency w21k, I developed the concept for the website, the web design, the logo, and the branding together with my team. Our goal was to create a strong and respectful visual identity that does justice to the historical significance of Die Verleugneten while ensuring accessibility for a broad audience.
