“Robbery:” Jewish Expropriation in a Video Show

ORF (Austrian Public Broadcasting), June 5, 2024

German original: https://wien.orf.at/stories/3259997/

The Jewish Museum Vienna (JMW) and the Wien Museum have realized an exhibition without original objects with their cooperation project “Robbery”. It focuses on the systematic expropriation and robbery of Vienna's Jewish population after the Anschluss of Austria.

It is an attempt to “tell the story of the Holocaust in a different way,” says JMW Director Barbara Staudinger. In museums, you only get to see the objects in a video installation. “Robbery” is an “unconventional exhibition” that was deliberately conceived as an “artistic installation” and a memorial, added Vienna Museum Director Matti Bunzl during a press tour on Wednesday. “I think this is extremely appropriate.”

Twelve exemplary cases were selected by the curator duo Hannes Sulzenbacher and Gerhard Milchram. From March 1938, a “gigantic robbery” was possible in Vienna. “People knew: now we have a clear path,” explained Sulzenbacher. “That's another reason why we considered whether we should perhaps call the exhibition ‘Greed’ rather than ‘Robbery’.”

Videos show robbery

But how to make the robberies carried out by both private individuals and institutions comprehensible and vivid? The decision was made to create videos about the cases. The focus is on the looted objects, from everyday objects such as watches to works of art, which are shown on the displays in the Jewish Museum and unpacked again in the Wien Museum.

Filmmaker Patrick Topitschnig is responsible for the visual concept, bringing the objects up close and having them carefully handled by gloved hands. The originals themselves, however, are not shown. “It's almost like a memory,” says Sulzenbacher. “The aim is to make the withdrawal tangible. We want to turn this absence into a presence.”

Personal stories and “anonymous prey”

Among the twelve cases and fates presented - the exhibition texts also present the personal stories of the original owners, and the QR code allows visitors to delve even deeper - are the sugar manufacturer Oscar Bondy and lawyer Siegfried Fuchs, as well as “anonymous loot” from the Dorotheum. The auction house was one of the biggest profiteers of the looting of the Jewish population at the time, as many objects were resold here.

Between 1938 and 1945, around 1,500 objects from the Dorotheum that were suspected to have come from Jewish owners went to the municipal collections. However, in many cases it is extremely difficult to determine the previous owners, not least due to the lack of records. Some of the objects were also mass-produced.

25 years of urban restitution research

In this context, Bunzl referred to the importance of provenance research, saying that museums must remain self-critical and ask themselves the question: “How do you deal with shortcomings in the history of your own institution?” Milchram in turn referred to 25 years of restitution research by the City of Vienna, on which a comprehensive publication was recently published and which also provided the impetus for “Raub”. He made it clear: “These 25 years are no cause for celebration, but rather an opportunity to reflect on how quickly a society can tip over into the inhumane.”

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Exhibition on the Robbery of the Jewish Population During the Nazi Era

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