Art Action: Photographer Luigi Toscano Says the Far Right Must Not Govern

Luigi Toscano traveled about 500 kilometers from Mannheim to Magdeburg carrying portraits of Holocaust survivors. Outside Magdeburg Cathedral, the photographer joined members of the Omas gegen Rechts initiative to send a message against the far right.

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It simply cannot be that a country is governed by a far-right party.

The stories of the survivors have shaped Toscano’s work and his political stance. “It simply cannot be that a country is governed by a far-right party,” he told the German Press Agency. He said he had met more than 600 Holocaust survivors, and that almost all had told him: “Luigi, please make sure that this never happens again.”

The portraits included one of Margot Friedländer, who died in 2025. Toscano acknowledged that the action would not change the minds of people who had decided to vote for the Alternative for Germany, or AfD. “But I am trying to set an example, send a signal, take a stand and speak out,” he told the Mannheimer Morgen before the event.

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Luigi, please make sure that this never happens again.

A recent Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll for ZDF put the AfD, led in the state election by Ulrich Siegmund, at 41 percent, making it the strongest force by a wide margin. During the final stage of the campaign, Siegmund repeatedly said he wanted to govern alone and would not cooperate with other parties after the election.

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But I am trying to set an example, send a signal, take a stand and speak out.

Toscano, born in 1972 to Sicilian migrant workers, received a UNESCO award and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his project “Against Oblivion.” He described the strong AfD support in Saxony-Anhalt and eastern Germany as “a strange phenomenon.” He also said, “We have proof that some people in the AfD are criminals,” and questioned why so many eastern Germans were embittered despite having lived under a dictatorship.

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We have proof that some people in the AfD are criminals.