From 11 January to 29 March, the National Hiding Museum presents a special exhibition of the Bocholter artist Klaus Cordes. With his series ‘Donata’, he pays an artistic homage to Donata Helmrich, who saved the lives of countless persecuted Jews during the Second World War.

“Rather dead than cowardly parents”
Donata Helmrich (1900-1986) was honored by Yad Vashem as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’. Despite the danger to her family with four children, she hid Jewish women in the bunker of her house and helped them find false papers or workplaces. Her intransigence is aptly summed up by the motto on her memorial stone in Berlin: “Better that our children have dead parents than cowardly parents.” After the war, she remained socially involved and worked as an interpreter for the German Chancellors Adenauer and Schröder, among others.

Mail-Art: History in a new light
Artist Klaus Cordes from Bocholt has translated the story of Donata Helmrich into a series of around 50 works of art. He uses the ‘Mail-Art’ technique: collages in which the official portrait stamp of the Deutsche Post is combined with photographic backgrounds.
The exhibition does more than just document history. It brings Donata Helmrich closer to the person and draws a parallel to current events. According to Cordes, selfless help to victims of injustice is still a necessary example in our time.

About the artist
Klaus Cordes has been making Mail-Art collages as illustrations for texts for thirty years. In total, he produced about 3,000 magazines, including series on greats such as Mozart, Goethe, Kafka and Martin Luther (which was previously shown in the Koppelkerk in Bredevoort). Cordes has previously exhibited in cities such as Münster, Bremen and Weimar. With the series ‘Donata’ he returns to the border region to tell a story of courage and humanity.

On Sunday 18 January, the exhibition will be officially opened in a private meeting, but can already be visited.

Klaus Cordes | Photo: Sven Betz – BBV