“I want to talk about the truth that was there”

The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963–1965

Authors

  • Florine Miez Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History
  • Anna Wolfinger Central Office to Promote Equal Opportunities for Women (ZGF) Regional Government of Bremen
  • Marianne Windsperger Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23777/

Keywords:

survivors, ; Holocaust, postwar trials

Abstract

The exhibition “I want to talk about the truth that was there”: The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963–1965 at Frankfurt’s Römer traced the history and impact of the largest and most significant trial against National Socialist perpetrators in post-war Germany. Using written documents, photographs, film and audio recordings; interviews with contemporary witnesses; and autobiographical accounts, it reconstructs the origins of the trial, the exceptional circumstances to which witnesses were exposed, how the trial became a media event, and the trial’s legal and cultural consequences. The exhibition focuses on the role of survivors, whether as witnesses, activists, or lawyers – it was they who played a decisive role in bringing the truth about Auschwitz to light. Two of the curators, Florine Miez and Anna Wolfinger, in conversation with Marianne Windsperger, provide insights into the making of this groundbreaking exhibition.

Author Biographies

  • Florine Miez, Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History

    Florine Miez is a researcher at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin and previously worked at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. She studied political science and German language and literature in Frankfurt.

    Email: miez@ifz-muenchen.de

  • Anna Wolfinger, Central Office to Promote Equal Opportunities for Women (ZGF) Regional Government of Bremen

    Anna Wolfinger is a legal advisor in the field of women’s and equality law for the federal state of Bremen. She studied law in Bremen and Vienna, specialising in international law and legal theory. She completed her second state examination in 2023.

    Email: anna.wolfinger@posteo.de

  • Marianne Windsperger, Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies
    Marianne Windsperger, works as a research coordinator at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. At the VWI she coordinates the Austrian consortium EHRI-AT within EHRI-ERIC and has been elected as the Vice-Chair of the National Coordinators Committee in EHRI-ERIC in 2025. She studied Comparative Literature and Romance Languages at the University of Vienna. Since 2018 she is a member of the executive board of the Theodor Kramer Society for Exile Studies in Vienna. Her research and publications focus on literary representations of the Holocaust, on the afterlife of Yiddish literature, and transgenerational memorial practices.   Email: marianne.windsperger@vwi.ac.at  

Downloads

Published

2026-05-10

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2026): S:I.M.O.N. – SHOAH: INTERVENTION. METHODS. DOCUMENTATION.

Section

INTERVIEW

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Florine Miez, Anna Wolfinger, Marianne Windsperger

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

S:I.M.O.N. operates under the Creative Commons Licence CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives). This allows for the reproduction of all articles, free of charge, for non-commercial use, and with appropriate citation information. Authors publishing with S:I.M.O.N. should accept these as the terms of publication. The copyright of all articles remains with the author of the article. The copyright of the layout and design of articles published in S:I.M.O.N. remains with S:I.M.O.N. and may not be used in any other publications.

How to Cite

“‘I Want to Talk about the Truth That Was there’: The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963–1965”. 2026. S: I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. 13 (1): 167-77. https://doi.org/10.23777/.