German artist Richard Grune was arrested by the Nazis for his homosexuality in Berlin in 1934 and eventually sent to a concentration camp in 1937.

After his liberation in 1945 he exhibited these prints, later publishing them as two portfolios. The accomplished but harrowing works depict the traumatic experience of prisoners in the Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg camps, many of them imprisoned for their sexuality or political beliefs. These prints, which reveal an often underrepresented aspect of the Holocaust narrative, were part of the collection of the South African-born artist Albert Adams. They now join the Imperial War Museum collection, where it is planned to include them in the redesigned Holocaust Galleries, opening in 2021 as part of the museum’s ongoing development.


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