"To portray people who have been brutally torn from life, using private photos and without close contact to the families. This task has become something very big for me and has not let me go for two years. I have worked on these pictures for about 500 hours, often the terrible fates and the courage of the families have not let me rest. The peace that it takes to paint portraits. Painting faces of these victims of racism and hatred is very touching and sometimes felt encroaching. I never thought this work would be so long and intense. I wanted to portray the fullness of life, to capture the beauty and warmth of these people in these private memory photos, who at the time had no idea of their terrible fate. To create a beautiful memory of

Enver Şimşek * Abdurrahim Özüdoğru * Süleyman Taşköprü * Habil Kılıç * Mehmet Turgut * İsmail Yaşar * Theodoros Boulgarides * Mehmet Kubaşık * Halit Yozgat * Michèle Kiesewetter

Very soon it was clear that it is all about eye level. Who are the dead who are portrayed and honored in Germany? Industrialists, chancellors and kings and other celebrities hang in the magnificent halls.

Where are the victims of racism? Often it is the names and perspectives of the perpetrators that are in the public eye.

Where are the faces, the names of the victims?

The photos from family albums were first found in police files and racist news. Only through hard struggles of relatives and their allies do victims of racism get proper attention in the news, on protest signs, on social media, but also on more and more memorials and in the hearts of many people. Because people are taking the writing of history into their own hands. The history of the many.

Driven by the hope that relatives will recognize their loved ones, I have worked on the images for a very long time - trying to read the essence of the portrayed from the private photos. My goal is to exhibit the portraits in a dignified setting before the representatives of the initiative "Keupstraße is everywhere" together with the donors will present the pictures to the families."

Veronika Dimke