Page - 354 - in Mauthausen und die nationalsozialistische Expansionsund Verfolgungspolitik, Volume 1

| Auswahlregeln für die MSDP-Videoausstellung «Mauthausen erzählen/Narrating Mauthausen»354 Cut, montage, sub-titling (team Dewald/Klingenböck) Commentary (on stele : short biography, texts, photos, documents, etc.) Provide letter of consent and interviewee’s agreement to the selection Opening of the video exhibition at Mauthausen : May  11, 2003 IV. General Discussion (Summary) The workshop started with an outline of and a general discussion on the video exhibi- tion project. Gerhard Botz presented the video exhibition project, its place and context in the new visitor’s centre at the Mauthausen Memorial. It is supposed to be one mod- ule among other exhibition parts and to be displayed along three sides of the main hall. Christian Sturminger, the designer of the whole exhibition, joined the presentation and outlined his ideas how to present the videos. A longer discussion started on the question how to present the videos and how to choose them. Also, several objections against the design were raised. Different ways of presenting videos were discussed. Elisabeth Pozzi-Thanner expressed the fear of a «sound-pollution» by different voices mingling in the exhibition. Alexander von Plato proposed a computer station, where three to four people together can watch the video and choose several topics. Botz presented then criteria for the choice of videos to be presented at the exhibition. Florian Freund argued that no general concept exists for all exhibitions in the Memo- rial. The new exhibition should rather show the history after 1945 and not a history of the camp. Botz responded that the main intention must be to present the «first» history (the camp under Nazism), not the «second» history (life afterwards). Von Plato pleaded to show Mauthausen for itself (indirectly) as mirrored through life stories and in the memory of the survivors to allow comparisons between survivors from different countries and the differing experiences as well as to expose not necessar- ily the «typical» but rather the specifics. The majority of participants preferred to pres- ent life stories and to show the traumatic experiences in the camp as a central element. Mercedes Vilanova had objections against the notion «Tower of Babel of Terror» used by Botz as a symbolic description of the video exhibition. She preferred a «Tower of survival and friendship». Botz answered that not only friendship and solidarity but also harshness and competitiveness should be presented. In the following discussion especially Brigitte Halbmayr raised the question of the life stories and how they are structured. Vilanova presented a concept of «keys» to under- Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0