Transit – Images from Exile
Exhibition and Publication | 2026
From January 9 to February 8, 2026, the Förderkreis Alter Leipziger Bahnhof presented works by the Argentine artist Mónica Laura Weiss at Zentralwerk. The exhibition explored themes of persecution, flight, and exile through the history of a Jewish family from Dresden.
The Argentine artist Mónica Laura Weiss is the daughter, niece, and granddaughter of the Reizes family from Dresden. In 1933, the family did not return to Dresden from their vacation in Marienbad. Paula, the sister of Mónica Laura Weiss’s father, had warned them about the Gestapo, which had searched Rudolf Reizes’s company for “forbidden” correspondence and foreign currency. This marked the beginning of the Jewish Reizes family’s odyssey of flight from the Nazi terror regime, which took them through Austria and Palestine to Argentina. Paula, married nee Gutmann, was able to warn the family of her brother Rudolf about the threat of Nazi persecution. She herself was later deported from Breslau to Theresienstadt and did not survive the Shoah.
In her work, the artist explores her family’s German-Jewish roots and the “long shadows of the past,” as she herself describes them. Her images reflect motifs of persecution, flight, lost homeland, and the experience of living between two cultures. The artist contrasts her mother’s life, shaped by exile after leaving Dresden, with images of her own childhood in Argentina, drawing on documents preserved in the family archive. Her artist’s books combine photographs and other documents with small objects as well as German-language poems by various authors who were likewise driven into exile.
Trusteeship of the Works
After the exhibition, Mónica Laura Weiss entrusted the works from the series to the Gedenkort Alter Leipziger Bahnhof association for safekeeping. In accordance with her wishes, the series is to become a donation to a future memorial and meeting place, where it will be preserved and used. We thank Mónica Laura Weiss for the trust expressed through this gesture.
Impressions
Impressions from the opening on January 8, 2026
Students from Gymnasium Dresden-Plauen visit the exhibition as part of a workshop
Visitors in the exhibition
Contributors
Exhibition organization: Gabriele Atanassow
Curation and project management: Alexander Atanassow
Educational guide: Gabriele Knapp
Documentary film: Michael Sternberg
Layout and typesetting of the accompanying brochure: Alexander Atanassow
Editing of the accompanying brochure: Gabriele Atanassow
With the kind support of:
In cooperation with:
