Ramesch Daha. Installation in Eisenerz and at Leopoldstein Lake

In the last months of the war tens of thousands of Hungary Jews were brought by the National Socialist authorities to undertake forced labour on the Austrian border, in order to build the so-called eastern rampart against the approaching Red Army. The military futility of this plan caused the Nazis, at the end of March 1945, to ‘drive’ the Hungarian Jews on so-called death marches to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. On these marches, mass shootings of Jews took place in a series of Austrian municipalities. The largest massacre in Styria was carried out by the Eisenerz Volkssturm (‘People’s Storm’) on April 8th, 1945, close by the summit of the Präbichl pass, at which more than 200 Jews were murdered. The bodies were transported on lorries to the meadow by Leopoldstein Lake and buried there in mass graves. In November 1945 the graves were discovered and re-buried in the graveyard opposite Leopoldstein Castle, still in existence today, and a memorial inscription was added (see: Heimo Halbrainer: Todesmarsch Eisenstraße 1945, Terror, Handlungsspielräume, Erinnerungen: Menschliches Handeln unter Zwangsbedingungen, Graz 2005). Ramesch Daha (* 1971 in Teheran) will create a work based, as always, on extensive research. The work, this time in many parts, is created in collaboration with the municipality of Eisenerz and will be positioned by the artist both in the town and at the Leopoldstein Lake itself.