Helmbrechts Walk, 1998–2003

Helmbrechts Walk, 1998-2003 is a memorial testament to the forced march of 580 female Jewish prisoners at the end of the Second World War. This work is a visual representation of the 225 miles that the prisoners were forced to march from the camp in Germany into the occupied portion of Czechoslovakia, then known as the Sudetenland.

Helmbrechts Walk, 1998-2003 is a memorial testament to the forced march of 580 female Jewish prisoners at the end of the Second World War. The march began on April 13th, 1945 in order to evacuate Helmbrechts, a small satellite camp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. This work is a visual representation of the 225 miles that the prisoners were forced to march from the camp in Germany into the occupied portion of Czechoslovakia, then known as the Sudetenland. Susan Silas set out to retrace the path of these women—22 days in Germany and the Czech Republic, on the 53rd anniversary of the march. Silas documented this journey on video, in still images and in writings, including this book, which contains 48 archival color plates. The images are contextualized by a diary of the author's own experiences juxtaposed with news clips drawn from the front pages of The New York Times on the same days in 1998—thus drawing a connection between the violent events of the past and those being witnessed in the present. In addition to the originally unbound artwork, this book includes a survivor interview with Halina Kleiner, a preface by the Holocaust scholar Brett Ashley Kaplan, and a remembrance of the women who died during this march.