Munich Art Pavilion
The artist reveals his ancestor’s connection to Nazi euthanasia
November 12, 2025 – 02.50Reading time: 2 minutes
An exhibition on the crimes of Nazi euthanasia begins in Munich. Artists have a personal relationship with their subjects.
In her exhibition “Tendency Distortion”, German-Danish artist Lena Ditte Nissen confronts her own family’s dark past. Starting on November 14, Verdi Bayern will present a performance at the Munich Arts Pavilion – on the 80th anniversary of the end of the war and as a symbol against forgetting.
At the center of the exhibition is a 42-minute video work featuring documentary footage from the Grafeneck Samaritan Monastery in the Swabian Alb. National Socialist eugenic killings began there in 1940 – in just one year, more than ten thousand people were murdered, including 407 children and teenagers. In Nissen’s film, an inclusive group called Grafenschrei tours the area.
But this video work opens up a second level of personal narrative: Nissen’s paternal great-grandmother was Nanna Conti, the “Chief Midwife of the Reich” in the Nazi era. She was also in charge and editor of a midwife’s magazine, which she turned into a propaganda tool for Nazi ideology. Nissen’s great-uncle, Leonardo Conti, was the “Reich Health Leader” and was actively involved in the so-called “patient murders.”
In his work, Nissen repeatedly intercuts documentary images of present-day memorial practices with depictions of babies from the same midwifery magazine from 1940 – published the same year that thousands were murdered in Grafeneck. In this way, he weaves individual memory, collective reappraisal, and institutional memorial processes into a layered debate. In addition to his own recordings, the artist also used video materials from the Grafeneck Memorial.
At the opening of the exhibition on November 13 at 7 pm, Luise Klemens will speak with a classification from a trade union perspective, Alexandra Senfft with her contribution to the historical context and Prof.Dr.Jochen Bonz with an introduction to the project.
The exhibition runs from 14 to 30 November 2025 in the art pavilion in the Old Botanical Garden at Sophienstrasse 7a in Munich. This exhibition is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11.00 to 17.00. and closed on national holidays. Entry is free.
