Luigi Toscano

Luigi Toscano, the son of Sicilian immigrants who was taunted as a “foreigner’s kid,” found an outlet in photography—a way to escape the violence and neglect of his childhood, as well as drugs and life on the streets. As a photographer, he fights against oblivion, hatred, and rampant callousness. His oversized portraits of over 600 victims of war and cruelty are on public display worldwide—in German train stations, at Babi Yar, in Paris, and in New York. His story is intertwined with that of Anna Strishkova from Kyiv—the centerpiece of his exhibitions—who was deported to Auschwitz by the Germans as a child in 1943 and spent her entire life searching for her family.

Luigi Toscano is a photographer and filmmaker. For over ten years, he has been working on his multimedia remembrance project *Against Forgetting*; he was named an Artist for Peace by UNESCO.

A collaboration between Literaturherbst Heidelberg, DAI, and the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma

As part of theHeidelberg Literature Festival 2026