Die Gedanken sind frei
There are moments when the present feels unbearably heavy, when the complexity of the world overwhelms us, and yet there are voices, images, and melodies that open a space where hope and dignity can endure.
With her camera, Gerti Deutsch created such spaces. Her photographs speak of freedom—a freedom that does not always announce itself loudly, but instead reveals itself in gestures, postures, and the expressions of individuals. They tell stories of resistance, of holding onto dignity and identity in a world that so often seeks to suppress them.
The themes Gerti Deutsch dedicated her work to remain as urgent today as they were in her time. In an era of global crises, war, and polarization, her work becomes a resonant space—a reminder that freedom is never an abstraction. It manifests in lives, in stories, and in the ways individuals express themselves.
“Die Gedanken sind frei,” the song at the heart of this project, carries its own extraordinary history. Sung in the concentration camps as a quiet act of resistance, it became a beacon of hope and resilience for those who had been stripped of their external freedoms. It symbolized the unbreakable freedom of thought and the unyielding strength of the human spirit.
In a time when freedom is under threat in so many places, when conflicts divide the world and humanity is so often pushed to the margins, my work aims not only to capture but to make visible: the strength found in the freedom of thought and expression, the dignity that shines through self-determination, and the hope that endures even in the darkest moments.