Germany

Born in 1993 in Peine, Germany
Student (Media Sciences and English Studies, Braunschweig University)

“The hidden portrait- no/a picturebook story”(2008/2009)

A mysterious painting with a still life on one side and a woman’s portrait on the other leads Anna to the story of the German painter Otto Bücher, quite a favourite of the National Socialists, and to his Jewish wife, Elli. Curiously enough the portrait doesn’t belong to her, but to one of his presumably many mistresses, which brings this story to a whole new level making us question the heroic deeds that followed. Otto was denied to sell or exhibit his pictures between 1936 and 1938 because he didn’t want to divorce his Jewish wife and clear the racial file he was charged with. He faced deportation himself in 1944 after refusing to let his wife be taken to a concentration camp. Nevertheless he didn’t give her up and in 1945 he saved her once again by hiding her until the danger was over. It remains a mystery who the woman on the back of the painting is and why her image was hidden there. Unquestionable are Ottos intentions of saving the life of his wife.

For her entry Anna Wandschneider received the second prize in the German national history competition.