At German Protestant Church Day ("Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag"), the annual convention of the German Protestant Church, Chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Bishop Dr. Margot Käßmann referes in her opening sermon to the images of suffering children in the art of Gottfried Helnwein. Hannover, May 25, 2005
evangelische kirche KÄSSMANN
Dr. Margot Käßmann
Chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany
In a moving exhibition at the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hannover, paintings of the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein are on view. One of his paintings shows a girl with a rascally face wearing an armband for the blind, with her tongue sticking out. At first I smiled. If you keep looking at this painting, you will see that the girl has blood running down the inside of her legs. The child obviously was abused, force was used against her... yes, children are vulnerable. Childhood can be terrible, when children are at the mercy of someone.
- I'm thinking of the 12 year old Judith Wischnajatskaja, who wrote her last letter in July 1942: "Dear Father! With death I bid you goodbye. We would like to live so much but we are not allowed, we will perish. I am so afraid of this death because the little children are thrown into the pit alive.