Federal Chancellery (12/01/08)
Fifteen years of Jewish Museum Vienna
The Jewish Museum situated in Vienna’s city centre is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. The premises in Palais Eskeles were inaugurated on 18 November 1993 by Vienna’s recently deceased former Mayor Helmut Zilk and his counterpart from Jerusalem Teddy Kollek. In his overview of the past on 17 November 2008 Director Karl Albrecht-Weinberger stated that since the opening about 1.2 million visitors had been welcomed to 150 exhibitions.
The programme of the anniversary week (17 to 23 November 2008) comprises a number of special projects and events, including an Open Day. A commemorative publication has also been issued. A new permanent loan can be admired for the first time: the bicycle of Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism.
Herzl’s “Velociped“ had been made available to the Jewish Museum by the Altaussee Literature Museum, explained Museum head Albrecht-Weinberger. He described the exhibition rooms as an important place of commemoration and remembrance.
Vienna’s Executive Councillor for Culture Andreas Mailath-Pokorny pointed out that in the opening year 1993 there had only been “an emerging awareness of Austria’s role in National Socialism”. The Jewish Museum was a visible sign of the efforts to find a different approach towards history. “The history of the culture of this city would be inconceivable without the Jewish contribution“, Mailath-Pokorny stated.
The Museum’s treasures predominantly come from collections of the Jewish Religious Community (IKG), including exhibits of the first Jewish Museum (which was forcefully closed in 1938) as well as objects from those synagogues and houses of prayer in Vienna that were still existing after the November pogrom. A selection was displayed during the anniversary week. On 20 November 2008 Michael Heltau read from Joseph Roth’s novel “Radetzky March“.
The annual programme for the season 2009 will – just like in the past – cover a wide range of themes. Among the projects are a show about the displaced composer Hanns Eisler (“Individualist and Collectivist“), a cultural-historical analysis of Jewish Alpinism (“Have you seen my Alps?“) as well as a multimedia confrontation with stereo-types (“typical! Clichés about Jews and Others“). The current Torberg exhibition has been extended until 8 March 2008. www.jmw.at