The Picture Chamber of Bruno Schulz

Bruno Schulz (1892 – 1942)
The writer and painter was born as an Austrian, lived as a Pole and died as a Jew. He gained reputation in Poland with his story collections “The Street of Crocodiles” and “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass”. Bruno Schulz is considered one of the most influential, but barely known writers of the 20th Century. His magnum opus “The Messiah” is still lost. In 1942 under German occupation Bruno Schulz had to make the “Picture Chamber” as the “Leibjude” for the Viennese “SS-Hauptscharführer” and “Blutordensträger” Felix Landau.

In 2001 Benjamin Geissler rediscovered the murals while shooting a documentary in Drohobycz, today Ukraine. But a short time later the murals was destroyed by agents of the Yad Vashem Memorial and later still by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture when pieces of the chamber were removed. The actions of Yad Vashem led to a worldwide controversy. After years of systematic efforts, Benjamin Geissler has reconstructed the final work of the genius for the first time in a true-to-scale multi-media installation.

Accompanying the exhibition, a catalogue with texts and various illustrations is available.