Taboo

"Sonderbauten:
The Special Block"
Quintan Ana Wikswo

Dachau/New York, NY, 2103

"On the 11th of July, 1943, sixteen female prisoners
were raped by ninety-four men for a Schutzstaffel
profit of one hundred and forty-one Reichsmarks"

There were brothels for prisoners in several concentration camps. In the so-called Sonderbauten, female prisoners who had usually been classified as "asocial" were forced to work there as prostitutes. As part of the system of rewards, male prisoners in the camps were often allowed to visit these special blocks. After the war only very few of the women gave accounts of their forced prostitution, as the fear of stigmatization was too great. The special blocks in the concentration camps were usually torn down. For decades, no plaques commemorated their existence; no signs remained of what had taken place.

Quintan Ana Wikswo spoke with several of the women about the time they spent in the camp brothels and conducted anonymous interviews. She visited the Dachau memorial several times, searching the grounds in vain for the special block and its history. Using cameras that women had produced in Dachau as forced laborers for the Agfa company, Wikswo began photographing the grounds. She put flowers inside the old, defective cameras between lens and film. Unique photographs resulted, the damaged effect of which was intended, symbolizing the injuries and suffering of the women who had been forced into prostitution. Wikswo created fragmentary and abstract texts for each photograph, evoking the history of the Sonderbauten.

With her work Quintan Ana Wikswo has broken the taboo surrounding the brothels and has created a personal remembrance ritual of the special blocks.

For further information on "Sonderbauten/ The Special Block" by Quintan Ana Wikswo, please also read Quintan Ana Wikswo, SONDERBAUTEN: Der besondere Block/The Special Block (PDF, 110 KB). We thank the Kehrer Verlag for granting permission to use this text.

The Artist Quintan Ana Wikswo

Quintan Ana Wikswo is a transdisciplinary artist working in visual art, literature, film, and performance collaboration. Recognized for her visionary explorations of innovative new art-forms, her award-winning projects are widely exhibited, published, and performed with prominent institutions in New York, Los Angeles, France, and Germany, including major solo museums exhibitions. She lives in New York City, where she is the Co-Artistic Director of Fieldshift Further.
For more information, please visit www.quintanwikswo.com.