Vienna's Jewish Museum Reopens in September, 2011
Vienna's Jewish Museum was founded in 1895, two years before the founding of the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt and 11 years before the founding of the museum in Prague. The museum was closed for renovations for the summer, and will reopen in September, to become once again an integral part of the city's cultural life.
"A Place for Remembering"
According to Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, with whom I spoke, this museum does not regard itself as a national museum. It is "a place for remembering." The approximately 20,000 exhibits have been wrapped individually, recorded and carefully put into boxes to transport them to a "museum-ready-depot." When the renovation is complete, with new air conditioning and humidity systems, the completely overhauled museum will reopen. Staff found it particularly important to protect Nancy Spero's 1995 "Installation of Remembrance" and tried to save the famous holograms on the second floor of the museum. The only solution for the deteriorated holograms, was to move some of them to the Technical Museum and the rest to a storage facility with suitable conservation conditions.
My Memories of the Museum
I wandered into the wonderful Palais Eskeles, a mansion designated as a historic monument on one of my frequent visits to Vienna to see my brother. The building has a chequered history. It started off as part of a 15th century Augustinian Monastery in which the small chapel of St. Dorothy was located. It ended its pre-museum status as part of the Dorotheum, Austria's traditional state auction house. Now it is considered a historical and historico-cultural monument as well as part of the Austrian commemoration.
The exhibits were grouped according to what Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek called "the collective religious and individual life cycles of the year." Group number three, for example, contained ritual objects used for Passover, while group six displayed items used for Yom Kippur. She explained that the museum decided to dispense with labels and descriptions because ritual objects are interchangeable and basic values, rather than individual items, formed the theme of the exhibition.
Being Jewish
This was the title of the last exhibit before the museum closed in June. It focused on the theme of a chapter in a book written by the famous Prague-born philosopher, writer and essayist, Villem Flusser. The question, "What is a Jew?" was asked and along with photos by Peter Rigaud, the real meaning of being Jewish was explored. The exhibition brochure quoted from Flusser: "There is a Yiddish saying, Schwer zu sein ein Yid, - It's hard to be a Jew, and it is said with a wry smile. With a smile, as there is nothing so easy; you are and always will be Jewish, whatever you want to do for or against it - whether you openly show your Jewishness or make it your profession; or deny it in front of others or go into self-denial about it. However, in another sense, it is pretty difficult being a Jew and this explains the melancholic smile which accompanies this phrase."
Sister Museum with Database
There is a second Jewish Museum in Vienna - the annex in the Misrachi house, which is open now. It is called Museum Judenplatz and is located at Judenplatz 8, a short walk from 11 Dorotheergasse. The building is just behind the striking memorial to the victims of the Holocaust by Rachel Whiteread, which is sometimes called "The Plinth". This museum, which includes an underground partial reconstruction of a synagogue dating from the Middle Ages, has a database where the names of the 65,000 Austrian Jews murdered during the Nazi regime can be researched. It was set up by the Documentation Archives of the Austrian Resistance by order of the Federal Ministry of Science and Research. In keeping with Jewish tradition, it represents a memorial book to the dead, even though it is in electronic form.
Source
- Vienna's Jewish Museum
