The Austrian-Jewish artist Gisela Rottonara (1873–1943) was on 10 July 1942 deported to Theresienstadt ghetto (Czech: Terezín), where she died merely six months later due to the catastrophic conditions there. During this last months of her life, Gisela created over 60 pencil drawings capturing glimpses of everyday life in Theresienstadt. Most of the images were created near Gisela’s residence in the ghetto. Just before her death, the artist managed to hand over her drawings to a fellow prisoner who survived the Holocaust and kept Gisela’s artworks as a family treasure up until today. At the exhibition “Images from Theresienstadt. A Visual Diary of Gisela Rottonara (1873–1943)” in the Synagogue Maribor, the artworks of Gisela Rottonara are being exhibited in Slovenia for the first time.

Text: Benjamin Grilj, Boris Hajdinjak
Curator: Benjamin Grilj
Exhibition design: Renate Stockreiter
The Slovenian-English version of the touring exhibition “Images from Theresienstadt. A Visual Diary of Gisela Rottonara (1873–1943)” by the Institute for Jewish History in Austria was organized by the Center of Jewish Cultural Heritage Synagogue Maribor. On this occasion, the original exhibition was expanded to include information about the Slovenian victims of Theresienstadt. The exhibition features high quality reproductions of original artworks by Gisela Rottonara from the Kreuzer/Kerpen family archive.
Project coordinator: Marjetka Bedrač
Slovenian translation and text editing: Marjetka Bedrač
English translation: Mateja Žuraj
Proofreading of translations: Špela Vidmar, Adele Gray Kokalj
Adaptation of design: drugaOblika.com
The preparation and staging of the exhibition in Slovenia were supported by the Municipality of Maribor and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Ljubljana.

The exhibition is being organised as part of the Shoah – Let Us Remember 2026 programme.