Sadri Berisha - Memory Lost

"Sadri Berisha" "murdered" "July 8, 1992"

Text on invitation-card:

left:

Sadri Berisha - Memory Lost

Klaus Illi, exhibition with discussion panel

June 6–10, 2025

Städtische Galerie Ostfildern (Ostfildern Municipal Gallery)

Gerhard-Koch-Str. 1

73760 Ostfildern, Germany

Opening hours: Sat 10 a.m.–12 p.m., Sun 3 p.m.–6 p.m., Tue 3 p.m.–7 p.m.

Sadri Berisha, a Kosovar guest worker who had been working for a construction company for 21 years,

was beaten to death in his sleep by neo-Nazis with a baseball bat in Ostfildern-Kemnat on July 8, 1992; his colleague Sahit Elezaj was seriously injured.

The crime has been largely forgotten in the collective memory of Ostfildern.

We can see where amnesia leads in the xenophobic attacks that followed the crime throughout Germany. The best way to learn from this is through regional references.

Illi sees the crime as a late consequence of National Socialism and proposes the creation of a place of learning and remembrance in Ostfildern under the motto of Fritz Bauer: "Nothing belongs to the past; everything is still present and can

become the future again."

right:

Exhibition opening on June 6 at 6:30 p.m.

as part of the “Spot on!” exhibition series marking the city's 50th anniversary.

Gallery director Holle Nann talks with two contemporary witnesses, former mayor Herbert Rösch and Dr. Martin Ulmer, Tübingen, former Green Party city councilor in Ostfildern.

Further discussion round from 8 p.m.

at the Sophie Scholl Community Center of the Protestant Church, 300 meters away, Bierawaweg 2/1, under the responsibility of the artist.

Moderator: Mina Mangal, who as a girl was shot at in the Baltmannsweiler asylum seekers' home in 1992, a good two months after Sadri Berisha's death.

Conversation with the two above-mentioned contemporary witnesses, the son of the victim Gjevdet Berisha from Kosovo, Vlorë Kryëziu-Krug from Berlin, daughter of contemporary witness Murat Kryëziu, and the artist. The son's family will be present.

Translation: Selvije Idrizi, certified interpreter.

I would like to thank the Ostfildern Community Foundation and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation for its support and the parish for providing the venue.