Archive worthy
In the podcast program of the Innsbruck City Archive, Tobias Rettenbacher, employee of the Innsbruck City Archive, talks with guests about various topics related to the city's history.
3. Staffel:
For dritte Staffel, the upcoming redesign of the Reichenau memorial site was taken as an opportunity to talk about two main topics. Firstly, various aspects of the former Reichenau labor education camp, such as its origins and subsequent use or archaeological excavations relating to the camp. Secondly, the underlying topic of the culture of remembrance and places of remembrance will be discussed in more general terms.
Transcription
[Intro music] Tobias: Hello dear listeners of Archivwürdig! After a long break, I'm back today with some good news about the upcoming driseason of our podcast. First things first: The new season starts next week on Thursday, November 28th. And, exceptionally, new episodes will be released on a weekly basis. What can you expect in the dritten season of Archivwürdig? As you, dear listeners, may have gathered from the media, there was an international competition for a contemporary memorial site in Reichenau. We have taken the upcoming redesign as an opportunity to talk about the former Reichenau labor education camp. On the other hand, we also want to address the related topic of the culture of remembrance and places of remembrance. Finally, I would like to point out that the majority of the episodes were recorded during the ongoing competition for the memorial site. If you have any questions, requests or suggestions regarding the individual episodes, please contact us by email at podcast@innsbruck.gv.at. As I said, we'll be starting next week and, as always, we'd be delighted if you listened to the episodes. [Tobias: Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. #00:02:04-8#
Transcription
[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the first episode of our dritten season of Archivwürdig,
[00:00:06] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archives.
[00:00:10] At the beginning of our season I invited Sabine Pitscheider to talk to us.
[00:00:15] Sabine has been researching the Nazi era in Tyrol for many years and was part of the expert commission
[00:00:21] for the new memorial site and co-authored a study on the Reichenau labor education camp.
[00:00:28] Together we talk mainly about the Reichenau labor education camp,
[00:00:31] but also about camp and camp work in Tyrol in general.
[00:00:36] [Intro music] Tobias: Dear Sabine, thank you for talking to me today about the Reichenau labor education camp.
[00:00:57] Which is also, let me say, the overarching theme of the season.
[00:01:01] And maybe let's just really start at the base with the Reichenau labor education camp.
[00:01:08] How long has the Reichenau labor education camp existed?
[00:01:11] Sabine: Since the winter of 1941/42.
[00:01:14] And originally the idea was to set up a reception camp for Italian workers.
[00:01:20] Because that was exactly the time when Italian workers wanted to return home en masse from the German Reich.
[00:01:26] And many were picked up at the Brenner Pass.
[00:01:28] And the German Reich didn't want to lose any workers.
[00:01:31] And so the idea was to collect them somewhere and distribute them further, after a punishment.
[00:01:36] Because that was labor flight and was forbidden.
[00:01:39] And when the Italian government found out about it, they weren't thrilled,
[00:01:43] because officially Italy was an ally of the German Reich
[00:01:46] and you don't normally treat friends like that.
[00:01:49] And then the instruction was, well, if it's not a reception camp,
[00:01:52] then we'll make a labor education camp
[00:01:54] and there were labor education camps all over the Reich, over 100.
[00:01:58] And they were intended for discipline.
[00:02:01] For every worker, regardless of citizenship.
[00:02:04] And there the people were to be disciplined and educated to work under quotation marks, please.
[00:02:11] Educated and after a certain period of extremely bad treatment, come back to their old job
[00:02:17] and continue to talk about how bad it was for them, so that the others don't get the idea of resisting.
[00:02:23] Tobias: The choice of location, that's not entirely arbitrary.
[00:02:27] Sabine: It wasn't arbitrary, as you say.
[00:02:29] The Nazi regime needed dringend camps to accommodate the many workers,
[00:02:32] whether prisoners of war, voluntary civilian workers or forced laborers.
[00:02:36] And they mostly tried to create this infrastructure on the outskirts of towns or villages.
[00:02:43] And the first camp in Reichenau in this area, where the AEL was located, was the prisoner of war camp of the city of Innsbruck.
[00:02:50] And right after that was a civilian labor camp of the city of Innsbruck, over the years
[00:02:54] There was also a Reichspost camp and a Reichsbahn camp.
[00:02:57] And the location was favorably chosen from the Nazi point of view
[00:03:01] With the north bridge you could get to the other side of the Inn
[00:03:05] and there was a streetcar stop there.
[00:03:07] And at the same time, these camps were within walking distance of the large construction sites of the city of Innsbruck in Pradl.
[00:03:14] And therefore also accessible on foot.
[00:03:17] Tobias: You've already mentioned the other camps, which were still in urban areas.
[00:03:22] How should the labor education camp be classified in terms of size on Innsbruck soil or the importance of the camp?
[00:03:31] In contrast perhaps to the Innsbruck camps or other camps.
[00:03:35] And perhaps also, if we look a little, in relation to Tyrol, so to speak.
[00:03:41] Sabine: Innsbruck itself had, well, normally every larger municipality had its own camp.
[00:03:46] The local businesses usually rented their staff and paid for it.
[00:03:52] In other words, it was basically like a commercial enterprise.
[00:03:54] It was the same for the city of Innsbruck.
[00:03:56] And in theory, 750 people were accommodated in the camps of the city of Innsbruck.
[00:04:01] So there were 750 sleeping places.
[00:04:03] In emergencies there were often more.
[00:04:06] And then there were the company camps.
[00:04:10] That means that some companies, especially construction companies, had their own company camps.
[00:04:14] They were usually small, 100/150 men, and were then moved again when the construction site was finished.
[00:04:20] In other words, they were really traveling camps.
[00:04:23] And that means in Innsbruck itself we have the camps of the city of Innsbruck with about 750 people.
[00:04:31] The smaller company camps or larger ones.
[00:04:34] And the AEL, with 800 possible accommodation places, was one of the large camps in Innsbruck.
[00:04:43] But the largest camps in Tyrol were the power plant construction camps.
[00:04:47] So TIWAG in the Lower Inn Valley and the West Tyrolean power plants in West Tyrol.
[00:04:53] And these were, excuse me, very briefly, these were camps of 1,000, 1,500, 2,000.
[00:04:58] Tobias: As stupid as it sounds now, they were also prisoners or detainees from the camps,
[00:05:05] so they were also exchanged across Tyrol, so they came to the Lower Inn Valley for work assignments, for example.
[00:05:13] They stayed there for a while and then returned to the labor camp?
[00:05:17] Sabine: That was quite common.
[00:05:18] That is, normally a worker, whether civilian, prisoner of war or conscripted,
[00:05:24] could not choose the job.
[00:05:26] The employment office assigned them according to economic considerations.
[00:05:30] In other words, it was quite common for someone who was perhaps first at the Retter construction company's warehouse on the Ulfiswiese,
[00:05:37] then came to the Ötztal or then to the Illwerke and maybe back to the city in winter.
[00:05:42] In other words, we were always dealing with a lot of people at the same time, but they weren't always the same people.
[00:05:48] Tobias: Because we've already briefly touched on the subject.
[00:05:52] Work assignments have come to a building site, to a building project.
[00:05:58] What is the formal procedure, for example, how a company can obtain a worker?
[00:06:05] call them workers now, they're conscripted workers,
[00:06:08] is it a formal act, a letter that you send and then you get the person?
[00:06:15] Sabine: It was more complicated. [both laugh]
[00:06:18] Sabine: So it was only the employment office that was responsible.
[00:06:21] That means, if a company needed a worker, male, female, old, young, it didn't matter,
[00:06:25] an application had to be submitted to the employment office.
[00:06:28] And then you had to prove that you could accommodate the worker.
[00:06:32] That's why there were so many company camps and community camps.
[00:06:35] And only when that was secured did the employment office start looking for such a person.
[00:06:40] The Nazi regime had recruitment agreements with friendly countries,
[00:06:44] with Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and so on.
[00:06:47] And that means that there were recruitment offices in these countries where people could apply,
[00:06:52] for a job in the German Reich, if they were healthy and able to work
[00:06:55] and not hostile, they came to work in the German Reich.
[00:06:58] Those were the volunteers.
[00:07:00] Whereby voluntariness is very relative, because if they were in the German Reich,
[00:07:03] if they didn't like the work and wanted to leave, they couldn't.
[00:07:06] And from then on it was more like forced labor.
[00:07:10] And the employment office then asked at these recruitment offices
[00:07:14] and they kept coming... either the people came to the Reich individually or on transports.
[00:07:19] And they mainly came on transports from the occupied western territories of the Soviet Union,
[00:07:26] today Ukraine and Belarus, which were subject to particularly strict regulations.
[00:07:32] They had to carry their own license plate so that everyone knew immediately,
[00:07:35] that they were dealing with "subhumans" under quotation marks.
[00:07:39] And with these deportation trains they came into the Reich all together
[00:07:43] and were then distributed to the employment offices and the employment offices then distributed them again to the individual companies.
[00:07:48] When the labor arrived, no one could say, neither the employment office nor anyone else,
[00:07:53] that means in principle the companies that really needed workers,
[00:07:57] needed an enormous amount of perseverance until they got anyone at all.
[00:08:02] They were not allowed to hire someone who had applied to them freely, that was not possible.
[00:08:06] It did happen, but theoretically it wasn't possible.
[00:08:09] The only responsible body was the employment office.
[00:08:11] Tobias: It would also have been possible for the worker simply not to have been found at all
[00:08:15] and then it never came to the transfer of a worker, so to speak?
[00:08:20] Sabine: Yes, that is quite possible.
[00:08:22] The employment office, the message was simply terse, currently not possible.
[00:08:26] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Maybe we should just go back to the labor education camp in Reichenau.
[00:08:34] You've already said that they are registered, in and of themselves,
[00:08:38] come in, they come from the East now, different locations,
[00:08:42] they arrive at the camp,
[00:08:44] Are they then... or how meticulously are they registered, the arrivals?
[00:08:50] Sabine: That depended on whether they were prisoners of war or civilian workers.
[00:08:54] Prisoners of war were registered in the prisoner of war camps,
[00:08:58] Most of those who came to Tyrol came from Markt Pongau, today St. Johann im Pongau.
[00:09:03] They had a number and all the correspondence was between the management of the main camp and the labor office.
[00:09:10] The company itself had nothing to do with it.
[00:09:12] It only rented the labor of these men.
[00:09:15] And every week the POW camp had to report to the mayor of the town where the camp was located,
[00:09:20] report who was currently interned in this camp, who was imprisoned
[00:09:26] and which company these people were assigned to.
[00:09:29] Most of these lists no longer exist.
[00:09:31] That was the case with civilian workers, it was under the Aliens Employment Act,
[00:09:35] just like today. There was a foreigners authority at every district administration,
[00:09:39] There was a temporary residence permit, the people were socially insured,
[00:09:44] and were given their own ID card as a foreign worker, as we know it today.
[00:09:50] Tobias: How do you see the difference now between a labor education camp and a concentration camp?
[00:09:56] Sabine: The main difference lies in the purpose of the camp.
[00:10:02] To say that now... Tobias: In general terms. It's difficult to... Sabine: It's very difficult, but normally, you have to say, in an AEL the aim was not the death of the person,
[00:10:13] because they were supposed to return to a work process.
[00:10:16] And since there was a shortage of workers, the goal was basically to maintain the workforce.
[00:10:22] That had very little to do with the practice in the labor education camp.
[00:10:30] But that's also because the Innsbruck labor education camp took on all kinds of other functions.
[00:10:37] For example, it was a transit camp for deported Jews from Italy on their way to Auschwitz.
[00:10:43] And while they were interned here, of course they also had to do work and were treated extremely badly,
[00:10:50] because, as "subhumans" in quotation marks, they had no value in life at all.
[00:10:54] Or workers who became Italians after Italy fell, from the summer of 1943,
[00:11:04] who went on strike were deported to the German Reich via the Reichenau camp.
[00:11:09] They were treated extremely badly.
[00:11:11] They got some dead bodies out of these deported Italian workers.
[00:11:15] And then the camp also had the function of, let's call it, a depot for politically unpopular people.
[00:11:25] For example, when the assassination attempt on Hitler failed in the summer of 1944,
[00:11:29] there were arrests all over the Reich.
[00:11:31] And also in Tyrol, where those who were considered political enemies were interned in the Reichenau labor education camp.
[00:11:38] That was the case again in April 1945.
[00:11:42] Or we have this action in the spring of 1943, that the Gauleiter Hofer wanted to get Tyrol free of Jews at all costs
[00:11:50] and simply had the Jewish spouses of Aryans in Aryan marriages arrested
[00:11:56] and deposited them in the Reichenau labor education camp on their way to Auschwitz.
[00:12:02] These people were treated differently again.
[00:12:04] That means, on the one hand, we have this labor education, where the goal was not to kill,
[00:12:09] because the labor force should be preserved and then we had people imprisoned there again,
[00:12:14] where it didn't matter whether they lived or died.
[00:12:17] And that simply has to do with the change in function of the camp, that it's very difficult to say,
[00:12:22] where the difference to a concentration camp should actually be.
[00:12:26] Tobiaa: I understand, because the, the, the groups of people in the camp are already different.
[00:12:32] Sabine: It simply depended on how the Nazi regime categorized a person in terms of their "value".
[00:12:38] And there were worthless people and people who were more valuable.
[00:12:42] So the regulations actually said that someone should stay there for a maximum of 56 days for labor training.
[00:12:48] And work education meant forced labor, usually for the city of Innsbruck.
[00:12:52] Tobias: You said normally, that is, that is never the ... so ...
[00:12:56] Sabine: Over time, the longer the war lasted, the more likely it was that regulations were simply ignored.
[00:13:02] And, for example, this limit of 56 days did not apply to the so-called Eastern workers and to these deportees from the Western Soviet Union.
[00:13:09] They were allowed to be exploited indefinitely, because they were at the very, very bottom of the hierarchy of human value anyway.
[00:13:18] And that's why ... so it's very difficult to say.
[00:13:22] Tobias: It's not easy.
[00:13:23] And that's why I thought I'd ask anyway, because it's for the people there draoutside,
[00:13:29] because you always hear about the Reichenau labor education camp but ...
[00:13:32] Sabine: What is that?
[00:13:33] Tobias: What is that and why are there concentration camps, why are there reception camps, this camp, there ...?
[00:13:39] Sabine: Yes. The German camp system was very difficult with the different functions that were written into it.
[00:13:45] Because now, for example, a normal..., so in a prisoner of war camp the aim was not to kill.
[00:13:50] Tobias: Yes. Sabine: The goal was to exploit labor.
[00:13:52] So in a labor prisoner of war camp.
[00:13:55] In the main camps, for example, the more westernized you were, the more likely you were to survive.
[00:14:02] So a Soviet prisoner of war, the probability of survival of a Soviet prisoner of war was low,
[00:14:07] because they were simply treated worse.
[00:14:09] Because depending on where someone came from, you got the food... the amount of food... or not.
[00:14:17] Tobias: The same will apply to prisoners of war.
[00:14:19] Sabine: Also. Even though the Stalagleitung usually made the regulations for prisoners of war.
[00:14:26] The regime itself could not intervene in that way.
[00:14:29] And the Stalag really had to act in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
[00:14:34] The Nazi regime could not intervene as radically as it does now in a civilian labor camp.
[00:14:40] The situation was different in a civilian labor camp.
[00:14:43] There was no Red Cross and no Geneva Convention.
[00:14:46] Normal human rights would have sufficed, but human rights simply didn't exist under the Nazi regime.
[00:14:50] At least not for these people.
[00:14:52] Tobias: Subtle difference.
[00:14:53] Sabine: There is a difference.
[00:14:54] Tobias: But the one that makes a lot of difference.
[00:14:56] Sabine: It makes a lot of difference.
[00:14:57] For example, from the time that... let's say the spring of 1942,
[00:15:02] the Nazi regime had begun to deport millions of people from the western territories,
[00:15:05] the Soviet Union.
[00:15:07] And from then on, the number of prisoner of war camps tended to decrease.
[00:15:12] And more Eastern labor camps were set up.
[00:15:15] Because they were simply... were worse to treat without being harmed.
[00:15:20] Because if you look at discipline, for example, if a prisoner of war tried to escape,
[00:15:25] tried to escape, which happened very often, because the borders were close and very tempting.
[00:15:30] Then the Wehrmacht was responsible.
[00:15:32] In other words, they were picked up again.
[00:15:34] Wehrmacht officers were informed, they were picked up and taken back to the main camp.
[00:15:39] If a civilian worker tried to escape, the Gestapo was responsible.
[00:15:42] That means it was simply much easier.
[00:15:44] Less need for coordination, close chain of command.
[00:15:48] And civilian workers, especially the so-called Eastern workers, earned extremely little money.
[00:15:54] It wasn't a wage, it was a kind of expense allowance.
[00:15:57] And they got less food than others.
[00:16:00] So you couldn't fob off an Italian worker with the food that Eastern workers got.
[00:16:06] Tobias: You just mentioned that the escape attempts, especially by prisoners of war, are in your research,
[00:16:13] Did you find out that there were also escape attempts from the labor education camp?
[00:16:17] Successful or unsuccessful?
[00:16:20] Sabine: None.
[00:16:21] Tobias: None, right?
[00:16:22] Sabine: No, so not according to the files.
[00:16:25] And the problem with the files is that the Gestapo burned their files in April 1945.
[00:16:32] That means we often only know about the labor education camp from court cases,
[00:16:38] from death certificates, from eyewitness testimony, but not really from our own files.
[00:16:45] Tobias: That would be the next question anyway, how difficult it is,
[00:16:49] to somehow trace a camp of that size, where a lot of the files have been destroyed.
[00:16:57] Sabine: Interestingly, there are relatively many files hidden in municipal archives,
[00:17:00] many documents. That would have to be examined more closely, the community chroniclers would have to,
[00:17:04] local chroniclers would have to look into this matter, because municipal archives often contain real treasures,
[00:17:09] that no longer appear anywhere else. You can get a lot of information from court records,
[00:17:16] after 1945, the trials before the People's Court, which not only punished high treason,
[00:17:22] but also war crimes. That's when you get a trial against someone,
[00:17:29] who mistreated prisoners of war or civilian workers, you get information about how the individual
[00:17:34] camp functioned. You actually get information from many different sources,
[00:17:40] State building authorities, when it comes to finding a suitable location for a camp. Or when
[00:17:45] a company wants to build a warehouse and turns to the Innsbruck city building authority and the
[00:17:50] city planning office says, no, we don't want a warehouse to be immediately visible at the entrance to the town,
[00:17:54] because it really deters tourism. And that's why, for example, this camp in the
[00:18:00] Reichenau, they were all relatively close together, simply because the Gauleiter said,
[00:18:05] I don't want the camps to be spread all over the city, it's not safe
[00:18:08] simply an absurdity. The companies wanted, it was a bit of a clash, the companies wanted the
[00:18:12] camps as close as possible to their own premises and the Gauleiter wanted them as close as possible to
[00:18:16] concentrated in two places so that not everyone would notice it right away. Tobias: That's a good point anyway
[00:18:22] point you're making, that not everyone notices them. I only know it from some
[00:18:27] or at least from an interview I did with a contemporary witness who said,
[00:18:31] she never saw them marching through, the forced laborers. How do you see that? It must have been
[00:18:39] the people, especially if they were used by companies for work assignments, they had to be
[00:18:45] actually know where the people are from or where they are, not where their original home is,
[00:18:51] but where they are at the moment. Sabine: Mhm. Yes. Tobias: So the statement, so to speak, however you have it, you didn't know anything.
[00:18:58] Sabine: No, that's not credible. Forced laborers were in every community, even in the smallest one, and if they were
[00:19:04] only with one farmer, they were everywhere. And in the city they didn't hide at all
[00:19:11] concealment at all, because the prisoners of the AEL, for example, had to wear their own clothes and were made of
[00:19:15] lack of resources, they no longer had their own clothes, so the Gestapo simply used the
[00:19:18] the prisoners' civilian clothes with oil paint. So that you could recognize that they were prisoners.
[00:19:23] And normally people wore civilian clothes. That means,
[00:19:28] Civilian workers arrived in civilian clothes and prisoners of war wore uniforms,
[00:19:34] which made their escape more difficult. Because it allowed the prisoner of war to escape successfully,
[00:19:39] he needed civilian clothes and what was also very difficult is that prisoners of war were given
[00:19:44] money for their work, but not in Reichsmarks, but in camp money. These were vouchers,
[00:19:49] that could only be exchanged in the camp canteen. In other words, if someone wanted to successfully
[00:19:53] wanted to escape, they firstly needed a good knowledge of geography and secondly, if possible, a little knowledge of the language,
[00:19:59] drittens civilian clothes and fourthly real money. Tobias: Mhm. Not so easy to get. Sabine: Difficult.
[00:20:06] Tobias: And especially without the help of a local population. Sabine: That has the help of the
[00:20:11] local population. Tobias: Right.
[00:20:13] [Drehgeräusch] We've talked a lot about the forced laborers, prisoners of war. Were there any
[00:20:23] female prisoners in Reichenau or in the whole of Tyrol?
[00:20:28] Sabine: So prisoners of war are male per se. That is clear. Among the civilian labor force
[00:20:34] you have to differentiate between those who came from allied countries,
[00:20:37] who were theoretically volunteers. Then those who come from neutral states, in Vorarlberg
[00:20:43] it mainly concerns citizens from Switzerland. Or where citizenship is unclear.
[00:20:49] But if you look, if you look, there are different statistics for different
[00:20:52] points in time, in December 1943 almost drei quarter of all those employed in Tyrol were
[00:20:59] civilian workers from occupied countries, who were probably not there voluntarily. And if you look at these
[00:21:06] these almost drei quarters again, then you have to say that the overwhelming majority
[00:21:12] of them came either from Poland or from the occupied western territories of the Soviet Union and here
[00:21:17] especially from Ukraine. And what you see again is, if you look at it by gender
[00:21:22] that the vast majority of these forced laborers were women. That means,
[00:21:29] from the spring of 1942, forced labor not only tended to become more female, but and
[00:21:34] very importantly, tended to be younger. These people were deported from the age of 14,
[00:21:39] but younger ones were also possible. That means that in most of the camps, which were mainly
[00:21:44] work with Easter workers are young people. Tobias: But they weren't mainly in Reichenau
reichenau [00:21:51]. Sabine: No, they were mainly in agriculture, in the so-called development cooperatives.
[00:21:56] Every year the Gau appointed Aufbaugemeinden and they were especially subsidized with money,
[00:22:02] Construction of goods roads, cable cars, etc. And each of these development communities had
[00:22:08] its own, a so-called Russian or Eastern workers' camp. And the majority of them were female.
[00:22:13] Tobias: Hard to imagine actually. Sabine: Hard to imagine. On the other hand, the Nazi regime
[00:22:18] people from the East a low human value. What these women
[00:22:22] happened to these women was that they were not only extremely exploited. Textile industry, textile industry,
[00:22:27] agriculture, sometimes also in construction. They also had to suffer, for example,
[00:22:31] when they became pregnant, they were subjected to forced abortions.
[00:22:34] Tobias. I could also imagine... Sabine: And of course there were also rapes.
[00:22:38] Tobias: I was just going to... Sabine: Right. Tobias: That... Sabine: Yes, that's a side effect of coercion.
[00:22:44] Tobias: That means they were in their own camps in the places, in the areas of operation.
[00:22:49] Or is there another camp that is of interest or importance to women in that respect?
[00:22:54] importance for women? Sabine: Yes, the Gestapo AEL in Reichenau was only for men,
[00:23:00] theoretically. There were also women there, but only for a short time. And that means female
[00:23:05] Labor education prisoners were sent to the Heinkel company camp in Jenbach,
[00:23:09] today the Jenbach factory. Tobias: And do you know what happened to the women after that, so to speak, either with
[00:23:15] end of the regime, did they all return to their countries of origin?
[00:23:21] Did some of them stay there? Is that hard to grasp, probably, isn't it? Sabine: It's hard to believe.
[00:23:26] That's an empty field of research as far as Tyrol is concerned. It's important to differentiate,
[00:23:32] which country they came from. So French women, of course they went back, Dutch women
[00:23:36] and so on. But with the deportees from the East, it depends on which country they came from
[00:23:41] did they come from and do they still have family ties? Because, for example, as it is in
[00:23:45] Ukraine, Ukraine was largely destroyed. Many families simply no longer existed.
[00:23:51] The women were young, 15, 16 years old, many stayed here, some got married here
[00:23:56] and had children, quite normal. They became a Tyrolean family. Others went back and
[00:24:01] It was especially difficult to return to countries that were occupied by the Soviet army,
[00:24:07] because many were suspected of having been involved with the enemy, regardless of whether they were now
[00:24:12] deported or not. And they were considered traitors to the people and traitors to the country.
[00:24:18] It was very, very difficult. And what else there was, we have some large camps in Tyrol
[00:24:23] camps. The largest camp for former forced laborers was the one in Kufstein on the barracks grounds.
[00:24:29] And from 1945/46, the UN refugee aid organization at the time made an effort,
[00:24:36] to find host countries for them. So emigration to South America, USA, France,
[00:24:43] Away from Europe.Dre[Tobias: And let's jump back in time a little bit. We're going to the end
[00:24:54] of the war. The camp has been liberated. Are there any reports like the liberation of the
[00:25:01] camp or memories of the liberation of the camp? Sabine: There are initial investigations,
[00:25:06] because the Americans arrived with their own war crimes unit. There are
[00:25:12] first reports from this war crimes unit, which tried to take witness statements,
[00:25:17] also with perpetrators. But there was an exchange of zones at the beginning of July 1945. And then came the
[00:25:23] French military government and they had to start all over again. And that means,
[00:25:28] we actually had to wait until the big trial against the Gestapo chief Hilliges and some
[00:25:33] perpetrators of the AEL, there were rumors and there were always smaller trials, but this
[00:25:39] big, concentrated information we actually only got with the investigations against these
[00:25:45] persons. Tobias: And are documents from the investigations probably still kept in Paris? Or
[00:25:51] are there also local ones? Sabine: They are partly in Paris because the trial against Hilliges and the
[00:25:57] others did not take place before an Austrian court, but before a [00:26:00] French court
[00:26:00] French court in Innsbruck. Tobias: Im... what's it called... In? Sabine: In the Landhaus. Yes, because as soon as one of the abused or
[00:26:10] dead were members of the Allies, so US-Americans, British and so on, the
[00:26:16] French military justice took over. And that was a high court in Innsbruck.
[00:26:21] And that means that in the Reichenauprozess we have documents from Paris on the one hand,
[00:26:26] but also a lot of investigation documents from Innsbruck itself. Tobias: Are there also figures,
[00:26:31] how many have been charged? Well, I don't want to go into the persons in [00:26:36] detail
[00:26:36] in detail, but basically how many indictments there are, how many
[00:26:39] I don't know how many acquittals, if any, and so on. Sabine: At the trial of
[00:26:45] Hilliges, five men were still on trial. All five were perpetrators of the labor education camp.
[00:26:51] The problem was that when the Nazi regime collapsed in the summer of 1945, there was chaos,
[00:26:59] and many of the perpetrators of the labor education camp were Reich Germans. And in the summer of 1945
[00:27:07] the wish of the Tyrolean provincial government and also the French military government in the country,
[00:27:13] to deport as many people as possible so that fewer people needed food. And the
[00:27:18] Germans were seen as a security risk and as carriers of National Socialism, which allowed
[00:27:23] to pretend that Tyroleans had always been well-behaved and democratic. All right, in any case
[00:27:29] it means that many of the perpetrators of the AEL were interrogated, some were also interned,
[00:27:36] but were then expelled as Reich Germans. And we have some trials in Germany in part
[00:27:44] only in the 70s against these perpetrators. They were deported and then they were gone. There were
[00:27:49] there were always requests, when the French military went, yes, we need him for questioning,
[00:27:52] Yes, we're sorry, he's gone. That is, but you can't do that to the Tyrolean authorities
[00:27:59] because they didn't know that at the time. Tobias: That means, actually, they went to
[00:28:04] Germany, then somehow the thread broke, so to speak. Sabine: Exactly, that is, and then
[00:28:10] they could no longer be tried in Austria. There were always investigations
[00:28:15] against these people, but the Federal Republic did not extradite them for political offenses.
[00:28:18] Gauleiter Hofer, for example. Tobias: I was just going to say, Gauleiter Hofer the most prominent example? Sabine: Most prominent example, the act is
[00:28:24] several tens of centimeters thick and those were always extradition requests, but the Federal Republic of Germany has
[00:28:30] not extradited and many of these perpetrators of the AEL, they were quite normal, they were normal
[00:28:37] people, they went back to their civilian jobs, lived quite happily and often only decades
[00:28:42] later, it came up and then it needed dedicated courts and that was in the
[00:28:48] Federal Republic of Germany was no different to ours. It takes dedicated courts to bring perpetrators to justice.
[00:28:52] [Drehgeräusch] Now the labor education camp has been liberated. But the camps will not be destroyed, they will remain
[00:29:01] preserved, I think they will remain in municipal ownership. The subsequent use is also...is also
[00:29:06] an explosive time, you have to say. Shall we briefly look at the individual case of the labor education camp?
[00:29:13] Reichenau and then perhaps in a second step, what it was like in Tyrol.
[00:29:19] Sabine: Yes, the labor education camp did not belong to the city of Innsbruck, it belonged to the regional labor office
[00:29:24] and therefore the state building authority and the state building administration was responsible, where, by the way
[00:29:29] the files are located. A camp per se, these were barrack settlements and depending on the type of construction, that is, depending on the
[00:29:37] earlier the camp was built, the better it was structurally because it was built on a concrete foundation
[00:29:42] foundation. The later it was built, the worse the structure was, because then
[00:29:47] at most there was a pile grid foundation and they were verydroaffected by decay. But in view
[00:29:52] housing shortage, the camps simply remained until well into the 1960s and sometimes into the early 1970s
[00:29:59] were used as emergency housing. The Reichenau camp complex, including prisoners of war,
[00:30:05] Civilian workers' camp of the city, railroad and post office, AEL, were used as an army discharge point,
[00:30:11] because every Wehrmacht soldier who came back to Innsbruck needed a discharge paper,
[00:30:16] that was done there draoutside, both the Americans and then the French
[00:30:20] military government used the camp as an internment camp for Nazis before it was decided
[00:30:25] what happened to them was court, deportation etc. And the city of Innsbruck always
[00:30:29] tried, as soon as a barrack became free, they tried to set up emergency apartments there.
[00:30:33] In principle, a poor settlement was created and that happened in many camps in Tyrol,
[00:30:38] For example, the camp of the cutlery factory in Schwaz was later rebuilt after
[00:30:42] internment camp also became a poor settlement. Barracks were a coveted commodity. And in view of
[00:30:50] the many bombing raids in the city of Innsbruck, the housing shortage was simply so great that one had to
[00:30:53] really every room that was somehow suitable as a place to sleep. Tobias: In the
[00:30:59] Ideally, only temporarily. Sabine: Ideally temporarily, some people are,
[00:31:03] have been there for many, many years because they were simply too poor and earned too little,
[00:31:07] to afford decent housing. That was a slum. Tobias: As far as I know, there was also one in Wörgl
[00:31:11] there was one in Kufstein... Sabine: Many, in every municipality where there was a camp,
[00:31:16] they were emergency housing afterwards. Unless the barracks were in such a miserable state,
[00:31:20] that nothing really worked anymore. Tobias: It's really tough when you think about it. Sabine: It's tough. Because the
[00:31:26] barracks that were built later, because the Nazi regime also made
[00:31:30] made distinctions as to who lived there drin. That is to say, if they tended to use Reich German
[00:31:35] workers, then the barracks were usually double-walled,
[00:31:39] with a layer of insulation in between or with double-glazed windows. Was it just a barrack for
[00:31:44] Russians, it was a windowless thing. So they also attached great importance to that,
[00:31:50] that you could tell from the type of accommodation what value the people had.
[00:31:53] Tobias: Again, a very stupid question on my part, but did it then come to sarnation work on these
[00:32:00] yes, bad barracks, be it in Reichenau or whatever else in Tyrol,
[00:32:07] that the windows were changed... Sabine: Yes.
[00:32:11] Tobias: That was already, wasn't it? Sabine: Mhm. Well, the city, the municipal building authority of Innsbruck has been very
[00:32:16] to keep these emergency barracks in Reichenau up to standard,
[00:32:20] where they say, yes, it's just about suitable for people.
[00:32:25] Tobias: And then I think until the 60s? Sabine: Until the 60s, until the construction of the municipal building yard there draußen.
[00:32:32] Tobias: And that's when the entire camp complex, so to speak, was...
[00:32:38] Sabine: Yes, then all the barracks were torn down, the last remaining barracks were torn down.
[00:32:42] A new road network was laid out, Rossaugasse, Trientlgasse and so on,
[00:32:46] None of that had existed before. And businesses were established.
[00:32:50] In other words, we see exactly nothing in Reichenau today.
[00:32:54] Tobias: Except for the memorial stone and hopefully a memorial site. Sabine: Exactly.
[00:32:59] Tobias: Finally, a question on my part, do you think it would be very useful to talk about the camp
[00:33:08] more research time in the whole of Tyrol?
[00:33:13] Sabine: Yes, it would make a lot of sense. What I have worked on are the files of the Office of the Tyrolean Provincial Government,
[00:33:19] State Building Authority and Water Management Authority etc. Files of the district administration, which is just largely
[00:33:24] still missing, because the effort would also be very great, are files in municipal archives.
[00:33:29] But the municipal chroniclers [outro music starts in the background] would simply be called upon to take up the subject.
[00:33:33] [Outro music] Tobias: Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.
Transcription
[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the second episode of our dritten season of Archivwörtig,
[00:00:05] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive.
[00:00:08] After talking about the creation of the labor education camp in Reichenau in the first episode,
[00:00:14] in this episode, we look at the study that was carried out on the camp.
[00:00:19] I have invited the co-author of the study, Horst Schreiber, to join us.
[00:00:24] Horst Schreiber conducts intensive research on contemporary historical topics in Tyrol
[00:00:29] and is, among other things, director of the Michael Gaismair Society and of erinnern.at
[00:00:34] and, like Sabine Pitscheider, was a member of the expert commission for the Reichenau.
[00:00:40] In our conversation, we talk about the genesis of the study,
[00:00:44] what difficulties arose during the research and also go into details of the study.
[00:00:50] [Intro music]
[00:01:05] Tobias: Dear Horst, thank you for your time.
[00:01:08] We mainly talk about the Reichenau labor education camp in our season.
[00:01:14] You are very much involved from the research side, working on the Reichenau camp.
[00:01:23] I've already spoken to Sabine about the camp situation in Tyrol in general,
[00:01:28] but then also specifically about the Reichenau labor education camp, how it started, the changes.
[00:01:36] And today I would like to talk to you about a study commissioned by the city of Innsbruck,
[00:01:45] to the Science Office, in which you are involved, and the study was then carried out by yourself
[00:01:52] and also at this point mentioned Sabine Pitscheider, who also took part in the study.
[00:01:56] Can you perhaps tell us a little bit about how the study came about, how you were commissioned?
[00:02:03] why this study is being carried out?
[00:02:05] Horst: Well, the fact is that the city of Innsbruck set up a working group drei years ago,
[00:02:14] to think about how a dignified commemoration could be in the Reichenau,
[00:02:22] to also make a new memorial sign, new forms of memorial signs and a call for tenders
[00:02:31] which is currently underway, because this memorial stone was there in 1972,
[00:02:41] where the camp was located in Reichenau.
[00:02:46] That was very, very early by the standards of the time, because that was actually the memorial landscape in Tyrol,
[00:02:54] In the 80s, memorials began to be made more strongly, but not really,
[00:02:58] only in the 90s and 00s.
[00:03:00] But the memorial sign is, of course, something that today, both in terms of the inscription and the aesthetics
[00:03:10] is of course no longer so contemporary half a century later and because, especially in Reichenau
[00:03:18] a lot has happened with new buildings, conversions etc., so the location is also very unfavorable.
[00:03:27] That was the background.
[00:03:29] And Sabine Pitscheider and I were on this commission and in the course of this it was also clear from our side,
[00:03:40] that there must also be a certain form of personalization, whatever a memorial sign will look like,
[00:03:49] but that is a prerequisite and that it is also necessary to at least take an approach,
[00:03:57] how many people died there in the first place and what can be determined.
[00:04:04] As I said, very, very late.
[00:04:07] We put forward that it was necessary and then the commission or the city of Innsbruck quickly decided,
[00:04:15] that we would pursue it more professionally.
[00:04:18] And as I said, the documentation level is the file situation is very difficult
[00:04:27] and so on the one hand there are the investigations that the Austrian side, i.e. the Tyrolean courts, have carried out,
[00:04:35] about individual perpetrators or people who were suspected of having committed crimes
[00:04:41] and on the other hand, of course, the very broad surveys that the French authorities carried out after 1945,
[00:04:51] which ultimately resulted in a major process that was organized by the now military government,
[00:05:01] i.e. by appropriately professionally trained judges etc.
[00:05:05] And that used to be such a large inventory to look through
[00:05:11] and on the other hand it was clear that people died in the camp,
[00:05:16] But the people also died in the hospital in Innsbruck or in the hospital, that is, in blocks of the hospital,
[00:05:24] Hall died.
[00:05:26] On the one hand, you had to look at the autopsy findings, which still exist,
[00:05:31] just look through the city archives, a bit about Hall as well
[00:05:35] and I just found a collection in the archives in Paris,
[00:05:42] where these reports contained the coroner's findings from Innsbruck and Hall.
[00:05:49] In other words, that was practically the fund that we worked with
[00:05:54] and then came up with this total of 112 people.
[00:06:01] In the meantime, we're already at 114 or 116 people,
[00:06:05] because of course the whole thing is never completely finished
[00:06:08] and on the other hand there is a problem, namely there are many, many people from the camp,
[00:06:20] where it was practically a transit camp, came to Dachau.
[00:06:25] Also in other concentration camps Auschwitz etc. but to Dachau.
[00:06:28] And then it's very difficult for you to distinguish
[00:06:32] and of course there were some who were already so physically exhausted,
[00:06:41] so shortly before their death, be it, the one problem is the food, so malnutrition
[00:06:48] and the other difficulty is that excessive violence was practiced.
[00:06:54] And we can clearly assume that in many cases, I think, we could say on the basis of the files.
[00:07:03] So they still came to Dachau, but they were practically already [short laugh] dead beforehand.
[00:07:08] And those who were already close to death so that they wouldn't die in the camp, who were quickly transferred,
[00:07:14] So we can't find out that number.
[00:07:19] Tobias: You said that there were many of the at least 114 dead in the Reichenau camp.
[00:07:26] How can you read that from the sources, is it clearer for the listeners?
[00:07:32] is it written like this drinnen, died in the Reichenau camp, what causes of death were recorded there?
[00:07:39] was it made so obvious?
[00:07:42] Horst: Well, one thing is clear, it's a procedure, as it is in peacetime.
[00:07:49] It needs a coroner's report and a statement of the reason why someone died.
[00:07:57] That's also the case in the extermination centers, be it for people with mental illnesses in Hartheim,
[00:08:05] the case or in the concentration camps.
[00:08:07] The problem is, as you ask the question, which of these is true?
[00:08:13] Now it's the case that most of them were made by the camp doctor, Alois Pizzinini,
[00:08:21] who came maybe twice a week.
[00:08:24] On the one hand, you have to say that in a number of cases you can prove that it's "fake" [forged].
[00:08:31] Where he also says at the trial, the camp manager told me exactly
[00:08:35] I have to write in a medical cause.
[00:08:38] Otherwise, there are certainly causes of death that we can explain very well.
[00:08:46] So, simply put, the one that's so common is pneumonia.
[00:08:52] Why is that?
[00:08:54] Well, one of the perverse forms of punishment was the so-called cold bath.
[00:09:02] So, especially in winter or in fall, late fall at low temperatures.
[00:09:09] And then the corresponding prisoner in the so-called bunker.
[00:09:14] That was a tiny holding cell
[00:09:17] which was freezing cold, not heated, cold concrete floor in there.
[00:09:23] And a whole series of prisoners died there.
[00:09:27] Whereby it was always the full intention that they should die.
[00:09:32] And apart from that, it was only under the guiding signs of the punishment from which they died.
[00:09:39] The other are then various causes of death, where it becomes quite clear to us,
[00:09:45] These are causes of death that arise due to malnutrition.
[00:09:51] So, the body is weakened, it is weakened for infectious diseases etc.
[00:09:58] So, that's how you can imagine it.
[00:10:00] And you always have to take a very, very critical look at what is listed here as the cause of death drin.
[00:10:08] As I said, we can link the storage conditions to a number of causes of death.
[00:10:13] And with others, well, things that have something to do with the heart are always very common.
[00:10:21] Now it can often be true in that sense.
[00:10:25] I'm not a doctor, but most of the time, you don't die from one cause.
[00:10:31] But this last cause can be true, but it doesn't explain why it happens.
[00:10:37] At some point the heart stops.
[00:10:39] So, as I said, we can explain a lot and some things are highly questionable.
[00:10:45] Tobias: And if I have it right in my head, many people have also been mistreated with punishments,
[00:10:50] and then also with beatings, which is also reflected in the mortuary reports.
[00:10:56] Where it's then about a large or death by sepsis, because the wounds and the people,
[00:11:03] who were of course punished were not treated by a doctor.
[00:11:06] Horst: Yes, that's a very big, important topic and a very exciting topic that I would like to discuss in more detail.
[00:11:15] Based on these two people, Alois Pizzinini and Matthias Köllemann, one is the camp doctor,
[00:11:20] and the other is the so-called medical officer.
[00:11:23] With Pizzinini, that's interesting, to say what is a porter, who is a porter,
[00:11:29] who has what responsibility, he goes in at most twice a week, he's very willing,
[00:11:37] then always presents himself as someone who couldn't have done anything at all.
[00:11:41] And Matthias Köllemann, he's much stronger than the perpetrators, he refuses the prisoners en masse,
[00:11:50] who would have been dependent on care.
[00:11:55] And after the inmates are maltreated to an extremely high degree,
[00:12:01] beaten green and blue, from wooden sticks to billets, whips, fists, kicks etc.,
[00:12:11] it is clear that wounds are wounds, these wounds do not heal because the appropriate care is lacking,
[00:12:19] they become inflamed, and if the body gets too little to eat at the same time, it is more susceptible.
[00:12:26] And beyond that is one of the essential levels of the Gestapo camp, the labor education camp,
[00:12:32] Reception camp, transit camp, transit camp, camp for political prisoners,
[00:12:38] yes, something where forced labor is performed.
[00:12:41] In the camp, but above all in the various field detachments and also when the prisoners
[00:12:49] is in a very bad physical condition or has just been severely beaten,
[00:12:56] over time, only a very, very small proportion of prisoners are allowed to walk or if they are almost unable to walk at all,
[00:13:04] that they are taken to the infirmary in the sanitary barracks.
[00:13:09] That means they have to continue working in such catastrophic physical conditions.
[00:13:16] And this whole complex of working and living conditions, like in this case wounds, wounds do not heal,
[00:13:25] there's gangrene etc., that's another reason, because you're very, very right,
[00:13:31] why so many have died.
[00:13:34] Tobias: You have now collected a lot of data, a lot of biographical data as well.
[00:13:40] Based on that, you can also make larger statistics of the camp and in this case, of course, of the dead in the camp.
[00:13:50] Can we perhaps also go into this very briefly, on the one hand, where did they come from, or
[00:13:56] In this case, only the dead of many of them, we don't know where they came from or where they went.
[00:14:01] Just look at the nationalities and maybe the age a little bit,
[00:14:07] How old were they on average, which age groups were more present, which less.
[00:14:12] Horst: Well, in any case, a typical feature of the camp is that it was initially intended as a reception camp for Italians,
[00:14:22] who initially came here in friendly status under Mussolini as normal civilian workers,
[00:14:30] but who then wanted to return home because the conditions, pay, work, leisure time, bombs in Germany were so bad,
[00:14:43] that they wanted to go back and then they were caught and re-educated through work.
[00:14:50] That means that among the dead we have one, the strongest group, practically the Italians.
[00:14:58] But here you have to say that this large number of deaths is due to this,
[00:15:04] in the case of Italian nationals, that they first appear on a massive scale,
[00:15:09] when Mussolini was overthrown in 1943 and Italy changed fronts.
[00:15:16] The Italians were given a new status from a friendly state to military internees
[00:15:22] and here we also have Italians everywhere outside the Reichenau camp,
[00:15:29] initially fought as friends with the other German soldiers, whether it was in Greece or here with us,
[00:15:38] They are now treated the worst alongside Jews, Jews and the so-called Eastern workers, i.e. the Soviet states and Poland.
[00:15:48] What's very interesting here, beyond the Reichenau camp, is that Tyroleans and South Tyroleans also treated Italians very badly,
[00:15:56] because here this story of the Walschen, the South Tyrolean question, again they are cowards and change fronts.
[00:16:05] So the Italians are now being attacked with tremendous brutality.
[00:16:09] In Greece, for example, they're being shot by the hundreds.
[00:16:14] That is also reflected in Tyrol.
[00:16:18] The Italians didn't necessarily only come from Tyrol, they also came from Germany or other areas of present-day Austria
[00:16:25] and in the last two years of the war they were treated incredibly brutally, which is why so many people died.
[00:16:31] The other thing that is quite typical are the two nationalities that are at the very, very bottom of the Nazi racial hierarchy.
[00:16:41] Besides Jews and Jews, there are the Poles on the one hand and, as I mentioned before, the Easter workers on the other.
[00:16:50] Simply put, Soviet nationals and here very, very strongly from Ukraine,
[00:16:58] because the Ukrainians coming to Tyrol are an extremely large proportion of people who were deported here.
[00:17:09] And the age structure of these people is very, very young and that also reflects the fact that you have quite a lot of youthfulness among the murdered,
[00:17:20] is only the apparent contradiction that young people are capable of resistance, but on the one hand it has to do with the fact that they are especially
[00:17:29] are used for forced labor under the most brutal conditions. In the over 50s or
[00:17:34] old people are relatively few in number. Of the dead, as I said, Ukrainians,
[00:17:43] Soviet citizens in general and Poles are the strongest group. Together they are even more
[00:17:51] than the Italians. But otherwise number one would be Italy, Poland, Soviet Union including Ukraine,
[00:18:01] which you don't particularly say today because of this conflict, the war that's going on now. And
[00:18:07] then there are locals, Austrians, they are about 13 people and then there are a few,
[00:18:14] different countries, yes. Tobias: In the comments, in this study, it becomes a list,
[00:18:24] the victims, so to speak. Every now and then there is also a place of deployment in the notes. Where do they come from?
[00:18:33] or how do you get this information, that you can really use it selectively for companies or for
[00:18:40] locations, i.e. where they were used locally, where do you get such information? Horst: One is like this,
[00:18:46] in the coroner's report, the location must also be specified. The location is something that
[00:18:53] rule is correct, if it is stated, in the camp or somewhere outside. So you don't have to
[00:19:00] imagine, as far as the field detachments are concerned, the Reichenau camp, as well as the other camps,
[00:19:09] that were not labor camps, labor education camps Reichenau, that is also still from
[00:19:13] the Reichspost, the Reichsbahn had its own camp, two camps of the city of Innsbruck, prisoner-of-war camps [00:19:18] and the Reichsbahn
[00:19:18] camps, civilian labor camps. But all of these prisoners were sent to the external detachments of companies
[00:19:25] and one particularly inglorious company was Stippler. So a very large part
[00:19:32] of course concerns construction work or, where they are even further away, clean-up work after
[00:19:41] bombing raids, i.e. rubble plus removal of unexploded ordnance. And that was very dangerous, of course. And the
[00:19:48] Unexploded ordnance disposal was now not only in Innsbruck, but also far beyond,
[00:19:55] for example in Brixlegg. And that's where things happened with fatal consequences.
[00:20:03] Tobias: We can't name and mention all the victims in our conversation now, but that's why
[00:20:12] nevertheless, perhaps we'll look at individual fates as examples. There is one
[00:20:18] right and from my point of view it also reflects very well this vastness of where people came from
[00:20:25] to this camp in Reichenau and you've already researched drüabout that. Horst: Yes, so something,
[00:20:31] what you wouldn't expect now are Jews and Jews from Libya, who specifically had a
[00:20:40] had British citizenship. During the war, Italy was the quasi colonial ruler in
[00:20:49] Libya. And from 1942, when the war became more dynamic, dynamic in the negative sense for the
[00:20:58] German Reich and for Italy, which were allies, the anti-Jewish
[00:21:03] measures also took effect in Italy. And from 1942, the Italian authorities deported them,
[00:21:11] Libyan Jews and Jewesses to a separate concentration camp on the Tunisian border and other parts
[00:21:19] take them to Italy, to various places in Italy and then some to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
[00:21:27] And there are 62 Libyan nationals, of Jewish-British origin, who are then sent to
[00:21:37] Innsbruck, to the Reichenau camp in the fall of 1943. And that's actually
[00:21:46] less individual people than family groups. And here we have a very interesting
[00:21:54] report from survivors, which was written soon after the liberation from National Socialism
[00:22:00] they were interviewed and that's why we have a whole range of information here,
[00:22:06] how they fared. And with this group, as I said, they were from
[00:22:14] fall 1943 to mid-April 1944 and two of them died. One
[00:22:23] young one at the age of 27, Shalom Reginiano, and on the other side a really old
[00:22:32] man, old man, where there are different dates of his birth between 70 and
[00:22:38] 85, whose grave is just at the cemetery, at the military cemetery. I came across it by chance and
[00:22:47] That was the beginning again, coincidence. What is that, what kind of name is that?
[00:22:53] and the grave has the corresponding Jewish sign. I couldn't explain it to myself
[00:23:00] and the Italian Briton, that was completely unclear and then I followed it up
[00:23:05] and then came to the conclusion that he belonged to this group. With him we know the
[00:23:09] cause of death. We do with Reginiano, which is exactly what we talked about before
[00:23:16] talked about before. A strong young man who is constantly committed to very hard work
[00:23:22] with a poor diet, who also falls ill as a result, who doesn't receive this care
[00:23:30] and who is then practically admitted to the sanitary barracks at the very end, where there are
[00:23:35] but it's too late and he dies there too. We learn from these reports of the arrival,
[00:23:46] where you are already beaten or where everyone has to strip naked. Among them are,
[00:23:51] it was actually a men's camp, but especially in this group we can see that
[00:23:55] there were always women, although, as I said, it was not intended for women
[00:24:00] that it was more the Jenbach camp, about which we know nothing, hardly anything, and there are
[00:24:08] these humiliation rituals too. The women have to strip naked under the mocking laughter
[00:24:13] of the guards. The women work in the men's camp on the outskirts, they have to go to the makeshift
[00:24:19] airport in winter, poorly clad in clogs, rags around their feet,
[00:24:27] Snow, trudging and alone people from Libya who come here with the climate,
[00:24:33] There were also a relatively large number of elderly people who suffered as a result,
[00:24:38] severe frostbite was also typical of the camp. The happiness in misfortune consisted of this,
[00:24:44] that there was a deal between the British and the Germans about the prisoner exchange,
[00:24:50] so that then the Red Cross was these 60, but 61, with 61 I say something else,
[00:25:01] they were then released in April 1944 and were able to go to Switzerland, France
[00:25:08] and they survived. There is something special, the 61st person, a woman was pregnant and
[00:25:16] she gave birth to her child in the hospital in Innsbruck, they survived and the interesting thing
[00:25:25] is that in the early noughties, when Austria first had to get comfortable under international Druck
[00:25:33] to address the issue of forced labor and also to make compensation payments,
[00:25:40] I mean compensation payments, that was 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 euros, but still, and that's where
[00:25:47] from the group of Libyan Jews, where most of them were already
[00:25:51] were already dead, two came forward and one of them was the woman, the baby at the time, who survived
[00:26:03] and who came forward when she was older and who was living in Israel at the time
[00:26:10] was living in Israel. Tobias: Of course, we've now spoken up to the time of 1945, but the study also deals with
[00:26:18] also deals with the time after that, which is also clearly stated in the preface to the study atdrÃ
[00:26:23] because there is also a research desideratum there. Let's perhaps conclude with
[00:26:29] briefly return to this period, the subsequent use, which many Innsbruck residents probably also
[00:26:35] or Innsbruck residents have also experienced, those who are still alive. Horst: Yes, so at first the camp was very
[00:26:42] was used in a multifunctional way. That means on the one hand and the photos we have of the
[00:26:49] camp are actually from the time when it was no longer a Nazi camp and there... the
[00:26:59] survivors then become refugees or "displaced persons" [person who is not resident in this place]. Then you have to
[00:27:05] you have to imagine it like this, tens of thousands of "displaced persons" from the various parts where the Nazis had
[00:27:13] occupied the various states, were also streaming through Tyrol, through Innsbruck, because many
[00:27:22] then move on or are accommodated here in various refugee camps or
[00:27:27] also Italians who want to go home via the Brenner Pass. That means we have a lot here,
[00:27:32] a lot of refugees, people who are interested can go over when they go to YouTube or Reichenau
[00:27:37] and so on, they come to a clip of a few minutes where you can see people at the
[00:27:44] train station in Innsbruck these people and also in the camp and it's primarily these
[00:27:51] people who had fled or survivors. Then the camp is also used as a kind of
[00:27:59] "Army discharge point". That means that there are masses of people who come or are released
[00:28:05] are released as prisoners of war and the French authorities first assign
[00:28:12] the people so that they, because you have to look, is this an SS man, from that area, is something
[00:28:19] investigated and then they are released and can then return to their home areas or to
[00:28:24] different areas to Tyrol. Another large group that is then created here is that the
[00:28:31] French authorities then also use the camp as a denazification camp. That means,
[00:28:37] that a lot of National Socialists are there for a certain time and we have several camps,
[00:28:44] where ex-Nazis are housed. One is this Oradour in Schwaz, the other is for example
[00:28:51] For example, Reichenau, Oradour in Schwaz and the Kufstein fortress are the biggest ones anyway. There are quite
[00:28:59] huge exchange between them. Prisoners, Nazis, wherever there's anything that needs medical attention,
[00:29:06] bigger, they come to the Reichenau because it's easier to take them to the hospital in Innsbruck
[00:29:12] or take them somewhere else. Then some took the chance to escape. Yes, and then, and that's
[00:29:19] very, very interesting. That's also a similar story to the one we have in Schwaz, like me
[00:29:25] recently investigated in Schwaz. The last stage, which is the longest, that is
[00:29:33] the accommodation of the poor. So Reichenau is a settlement for the poor. That means we have in
[00:29:41] Austria also had an incredible housing shortage in Tyrol after the war due to bombing
[00:29:49] etc. And the barrack camp existence is something that lasted well into the 1960s, even in Reichenau,
[00:29:58] until the early 1970s, dominated the cityscape, both in Innsbruck and in Schwaz,
[00:30:05] in Kufstein, in Wörgl and so on and so forth. And of course it's typical that on the one hand
[00:30:14] National Socialism in Tyrol was only researched very late, that certain topics, such as the
[00:30:21] we're talking about right now, were excessively late, too late for a lot of things, and that this was accompanied by
[00:30:29] to another topic that was and is extremely neglected, that is the history
[00:30:35] of poverty, the history of the poor. And especially in this Reichenau camp, where the marginalized
[00:30:45] people are "ghettoized", who then not only live down there as homeless people, but who
[00:30:54] are very, very quickly, badly, slandered, slandered, but who thus become such a
[00:31:02] sense of belonging to each other against mainstream society. And you have to
[00:31:08] imagine one thing, today Reichenau is clearly Innsbruck, I don't just mean as a geographical
[00:31:15] affiliation, but yes, you're there by bike, by bus and so on, but back then it was
[00:31:22] the outside, that was also one of the reasons why the Nazis used this reason,
[00:31:28] to set up the camps there. And that means that the ones in Innsbruck, they were the
[00:31:34] better ones and the ones in Reichenau, those are the abandoned ones, you could also
[00:31:40] a few areas in Innsbruck from the slaughterhouse, PremstraÃe, Stalingrad etc.,
[00:31:46] That is, that is, where are these children being educated? So this poverty that is inherited
[00:31:53] then practically continues and that goes on practically until the Olympics, where a lot of
[00:32:02] new living space is created and then the number of barracks that become more and more run-down and
[00:32:10] more and more dilapidated, they will be gradually dismantled and you can't imagine that
[00:32:19] then the poor hip-hip-hurra will all end up in the high-rise buildings. That means that there are
[00:32:26] investigations in the city of Innsbruck and a whole series of these people are considered not to be
[00:32:31] unfit to live in, so that they end up in the hotspots I just mentioned,
[00:32:39] like in Stalingrad, the slaughterhouse and so on, they were moved there or given a whole row of
[00:32:46] apartments then later in the high-rise buildings, where quite a few were no longer in the best
[00:32:53] condition. So as I said, quite a few families can move, but a lot of them are leaving
[00:33:00] from a place with a bad reputation for marginalized people to the next place with a bad reputation
[00:33:06] place. And this practically closes the circle to my other field of research, which always turns out like this
[00:33:14] overlapped, namely children and young people in out-of-home care and such barracks
[00:33:22] camps, be it Reichenau or other barracks that existed in Innsbruck. There are also
[00:33:29] very, very many so-called Yenish, who were labeled as Karner, Tyrolean gypsies, etc.
[00:33:35] An extremely large proportion of children and young people are recruited from these areas,
[00:33:41] who are placed in residential care, where the correspondingly very high proportion of the next
[00:33:48] excesses of violence then await them. As I said, the story of Amut, that's something else,
[00:33:54] where further research needs to be done. But at least some exciting things have already appeared,
[00:34:00] or also the Bocksiedlung, which is also practically a part of the Reichenau, which is also the city archive in
[00:34:06] published by Ms. Hollaus, where there are some very exciting stories. You can see,
[00:34:13] that this Nazi era reaches directly and indirectly far into the present, that it blows in and
[00:34:22] affects subject areas, geographies and other topics where we would not think,
[00:34:30] that this still has anything to do with National Socialism. [Outro music]
[00:34:33] Tobias: Archivwürrdig is a production of the Innsbruck City Archive and part of Stadtstimmen,
[00:34:53] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.
Transcription
[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the dritten episode of our dritten season of Archivwürdig,
[00:00:05] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive.
[00:00:08] In this episode, we take a look at the former Reichenau labor education camp from an archaeological perspective.
[00:00:14] I have invited the archaeologist Barbara Hausmair to talk about this topic.
[00:00:19] Together with her team, Barbara Hausmair was commissioned by the city of Innsbruck to carry out archaeological investigations
[00:00:25] at the site of the former camp.
[00:00:29] Together we talk about this research process, among other things.
[00:00:33] What insights were gained from the work and we also think about
[00:00:38] about further archaeological excavations in Tyrol during the Nazi era.
[00:00:56] [Intro music] Tobias: Dear Barbara, thank you for your time for being with us today.
[00:01:00] Archaeology is something you associate with when you go out into the population,
[00:01:05] mainly with, to put it bluntly, with old stuff, in other words everything that concerns quasi ancient things.
[00:01:10] In Innsbruck in particular, many people probably think of the Veldidena excavations, the Roman remains.
[00:01:17] Can you perhaps explain to us briefly, just briefly, when they started digging not even 100 years ago?
[00:01:24] Barbara: That's a very good question. In fact, the archaeology of the recent past
[00:01:28] is also a very young archaeology as a scientific discipline.
[00:01:31] In Austria, about 30 years old, if you want to look at it.
[00:01:35] And I think it's a very late development within archaeological research,
[00:01:39] because archaeology, as you say, was originally mainly concerned with older eras.
[00:01:43] That is constantly changing, because archaeology today is no longer so much about
[00:01:48] the question of the past in the sense of distance, but is actually defined by its sources.
[00:01:53] So we're actually trying to gain access to history through material remains.
[00:01:58] And it doesn't really matter what time they are from.
[00:02:01] And in recent years or decades this has also led to the development of an archaeology of the recent past,
[00:02:07] in which we are able to access this more recent past through archaeological traces.
[00:02:12] Tobias: From your point of view, is it easier to dig for more recent times than for the more distant past?
[00:02:20] Barbara: Yes and no. So I think on the one hand, if you want to look at it methodically,
[00:02:24] it is of course very exciting to research the more recent past,
[00:02:27] because we have a very dense parallel tradition through writing, images or oral sources, of course.
[00:02:32] And this creates a much denser picture and also makes the interpretation of archaeological finds
[00:02:38] much richer than is sometimes possible in prehistory, for example.
[00:02:42] On the other hand, it's also very difficult archaeology,
[00:02:45] because this past is of course very close to us dran.
[00:02:47] It's something where we still have some people who lived through the times we're researching,
[00:02:51] where family histories are shaped.
[00:02:53] And accordingly, this is very important to me, archaeology is not just a look into the past,
[00:02:58] but it is also very much about how we deal with this past today.
[00:03:02] And of course the archaeology of the Nazi era is also important here
[00:03:04] is certainly a more difficult archaeology in this respect, because we are also involved somewhere in these discourses,
[00:03:09] how do we deal with this past?
[00:03:13] And that makes it a big challenge, of course.
[00:03:16] Tobias: I've invited you now of course, maybe I haven't even mentioned it yet,
[00:03:20] but you were also involved or commissioned, I think, by the commission or by the city,
[00:03:26] in the area of the former Reichenau labor education camp
[00:03:32] So not you alone, of course, that's clear, but you and your team,
[00:03:37] excavations to find traces of the camp,
[00:03:45] can you perhaps also briefly explain to us how this assignment came about
[00:03:49] and what the process was like and maybe just who was involved.
[00:03:56] Barbara: The city of Innsbruck has been trying for some time now to create a new memorial site in Reichenau
[00:04:01] for the victims of National Socialism who were imprisoned there in the labor education camp,
[00:04:06] but also in the neighboring camp complexes, and in the run-up to this project planning, the city decided
[00:04:12] that it is certainly also essential to carry out further intensive research into the history of these camps,
[00:04:17] but also of the people who were imprisoned or died there
[00:04:23] and that has on the one hand led to very intensive research from the historical side.
[00:04:27] I believe Sabine Pitscheider will also be speaking here in this podcast.
[00:04:31] And on the other hand, this research has of course also raised the question of the exact historical location.
[00:04:38] How big was this camp complex? How was it structured?
[00:04:42] Can we actually find any information in the spatial structure about the history of these camps there in Reichenau?
[00:04:50] But of course the question also arose for the creation of the memorial site, which was certainly also in the interests of the city,
[00:04:55] are there really any material remains in the sense of buildings?
[00:04:59] that are perhaps still hidden somewhere in the industrial estate today
[00:05:04] and it was with this in mind that they approached me and my colleague Barbara Pöll from
[00:05:08] monumentGUT with the request to see if we could do something about it from an archaeological point of view.
[00:05:14] And the whole thing actually started in such a way that we initially, well, everyone who knows the Reichenau,
[00:05:18] knows that today it is a very heavily built-up commercial area, asked us the question
[00:05:23] and how can we first find out if there is anything left above ground?
[00:05:26] and how can we then assess whether there is perhaps at least archaeologically, i.e. in the soil, in the soil findings,
[00:05:31] is still preserved. And we did that initially by evaluating historical plans
[00:05:36] and also written sources and oral tradition relating to the spatial structure of the camp,
[00:05:42] but above all using aerial photographs from the time of the Second World War,
[00:05:46] which were actually taken by the Allies at the time as part of their air raids or air wars
[00:05:51] and first of all simply tried to show the entire spatial situation and the development of the camps,
[00:05:55] between 1940/41 and 1945 and beyond, of course, until the demolition of the last barracks in the 1960s.
[00:06:05] And on the basis of this aerial photo analysis, we then tried to see if there were still individual buildings somewhere,
[00:06:10] That didn't turn out to be the case, so today there are really no buildings left above ground,
[00:06:15] that would somehow still be directly connected to the camp.
[00:06:19] But we also managed to compare these historical aerial photographs with the modern aerial photographs and satellite images
[00:06:26] to identify areas that have not yet been built on deeply, i.e. that do not have basements
[00:06:32] and where there is potentially the possibility that there are still archaeological traces in the ground.
[00:06:38] Tobias: That means you've done the theoretical or partly practical work in advance.
[00:06:44] How did the excavations come about, is it very difficult with such a heavily built-up and, yes, used, I mean
[00:06:55] The building yard is still there and of course still in operation and the only one in the city, i.e. where everyone goes.
[00:07:04] Is it..., does it make the work for excavations very difficult or is it always the case or mostly the case anyway?
[00:07:15] Barbara: Of course, in urban areas, no matter what kind of archaeology you do, it's always problematic,
[00:07:20] because we simply have a very strong modern imprint.
[00:07:23] In the case of Reichenau, it was clear to us right from the start that the possibility of actually doing archaeology in the ground,
[00:07:29] would be very limited, simply because the development there is really massive,
[00:07:34] the demolition was very massive and, of course, because the area is used intensively today.
[00:07:38] All Innsbruck residents are probably familiar with the recycling center, they know how much traffic there is, even on weekends
[00:07:43] and of course the municipal building yard.
[00:07:45] But what we tried to do, actually through our aerial photo analysis, was first of all to clarify whether the potential was there at all.
[00:07:52] And when we saw that there were still very, very small residual areas in the southern area,
[00:07:56] of today's building yard, which was part of the camp area during the Nazi era, which has not yet been built on.
[00:08:01] That was of course an important indication for us that there was still some preservation in the ground,
[00:08:06] but also in the traffic areas, which are not underground.
[00:08:10] And the next step was to carry out a geophysical prospection,
[00:08:14] so a non-destructive archaeology and actually tried to find out via measurements of physical properties in the ground,
[00:08:22] whether it might still be possible to recognize lines or structures that we could connect with the camp complex.
[00:08:28] Tobias: Do you have these geophysical measurements or can you perhaps explain them a little bit more,
[00:08:33] Is that also about archaeology or do you also refer to the, stupidly said, external or from the university?
[00:08:40] parallel knowledge from other institutions that are there to support you, or is it already very much anchored in archaeology?
[00:08:48] Barbara: Here in Innsbruck, we really have the advantage that we have expertise at our institute,
[00:08:54] with Professor Grabherr, who has also been practicing geophysics, i.e. archaeological prospecting methods, for many years,
[00:09:00] and we received support from his team, with David Imre, to carry out the measurements on site.
[00:09:06] I don't want to get into the physics right now, but maybe to put it a bit bluntly,
[00:09:10] you drive over the areas of interest with measuring devices, so to speak, and then by measuring the physical properties
[00:09:16] actually creates a depth image of the ground. It's not an X-ray, but I think in layman's terms you can imagine,
[00:09:21] that it's a bit like x-raying the soil. And then you can see the structures in the soil, so to speak,
[00:09:27] that can be pipe trenches, but also, for example, the remains of foundations or something similar.
[00:09:32] And this virtual image gives you an initial insightdruinto whether there are potentially still structures there,
[00:09:38] that are actually still connected to the labor education camp, for example.
[00:09:43] Perhaps one more sentence about the fact that it was certainly particularly challenging to work on these very heavily built-up areas
[00:09:50] to do geophysics. On the one hand, there are technical measurement problems, but the big challenge is actually also,
[00:09:56] that the buildings, as they are today, essentially have exactly the same orientation,
[00:10:02] like the buildings in the labor education camp back then. And that's always one of those things,
[00:10:06] What I might recognize as lines on the aerial photographs is difficult to really determine from the virtual image, so to speak,
[00:10:14] Is this what really belongs to the warehouse or are these perhaps older line installations that no longer exist on the plans?
[00:10:20] Of course, we also need expertise from somewhere else, in this case of course from the city,
[00:10:25] which has tried to support us as much as possible with pipe plans so that we can rule out a few things in advance,
[00:10:31] what are structures that really belong to the building yard and what are potentially really structures that are still from the Nazi era?
[00:10:38] could be present in the ground.
[00:10:40] Tobias: Did the geophysical data also give rise to a suspicion that there are still remains here and there,
[00:10:49] or did you just, to put it stupidly, blindly drago for it?
[00:10:53] Barbara: No, we didn't go blindly drauf, that's why [laughs] we did it for geophysics.
[00:10:57] What we did was that we tried to see what anomalies we could see on the measurement images.
[00:11:02] And then we basically carried out a process of elimination.
[00:11:05] On the one hand, we looked to see if they matched modern pipeline plans,
[00:11:09] and then you can more or less rule out the possibility that these are historical structures.
[00:11:13] And in the second step, where we saw that we had no information that these were modern canal structures or similar,
[00:11:18] we then looked to see whether they corresponded with the infrastructure that we recognized on the aerial photographs, on the historical ones.
[00:11:24] And so it was then possible to narrow down certain areas where there was a high potential.
[00:11:30] But I would still like to point this out again [laughs] because it's important that there is of course a source of error here too.
[00:11:35] In the excavations, we actually had the case that one of these linear structures that we had in the measurement image,
[00:11:41] turned out to be a water pipe that was still in use, but simply wasn't on any pipe plan,
[00:11:46] but which would actually have fitted in well with the area of this accommodation barrack 1,
[00:11:51] which we then tried to locate and identify in the archaeology.
[00:11:56] And that's always the challenge.
[00:11:58] So geophysics is a very, very important element or a very important method for preliminary exploration.
[00:12:04] But in the end, we can only really know what we have in the ground when we actually start digging.
[00:12:13] [Drenoise] Tobias: Let's take the next step. You're really moving on to digging now, how much time has been allowed,
[00:12:23] how do you estimate how much time is used for excavation or even gets,
[00:12:30] so time, how much time you are allowed to dig at all.
[00:12:33] It's probably not just your own estimate that counts.
[00:12:37] Barbara: It's always a very nasty question when you ask archaeologists how much time they would like to have to dig.
[00:12:42] We are a very slow business [both laugh].
[00:12:44] No, we tried in this case, on the one hand because it was clear, of course,
[00:12:47] that even if we find something, it will probably only be to a very fragmented degree
[00:12:52] and actually the primary question was, are there any substantial traces left?
[00:12:56] So we agreed with the city that we would actually do a kind of small test excavation.
[00:13:01] This is basically only possible on very, very few areas on the site of the current building yard,
[00:13:06] because most of it is covered in concrete and we then decided,
[00:13:08] that we would actually make a very small cut, so to speak, in the area,
[00:13:12] which we then really excavate, in the south on this last remaining green strip,
[00:13:17] that we're going to open up at the gardening office and have scheduled a 2- to 3-week excavation for it.
[00:13:23] Really, but also with the aim of not doing anything in the end, depending on what comes out,
[00:13:28] to dig up everything completely, but simply to get a first look at the ground.
[00:13:31] Of course, we also clarified this in advance with the Federal Monuments Office,
[00:13:34] who are also responsible for this as an authority.
[00:13:37] And everyone involved actually agreed to that, so to speak,
[00:13:40] that this is basically a kind of first attempt,
[00:13:43] simply to be able to weigh up how much substance is really still there.
[00:13:48] Tobias; So what was the first onedruck [laughs] so to speak?
[00:13:51] Barbara: At the beginning, we actually had to realize that the area had been over-imprinted,
[00:13:55] namely also in the sense of the overlapping of the leveling layers,
[00:13:58] is much more massive than we had hoped.
[00:14:01] In the end, we really had to go down to 1.70 m
[00:14:04] to actually get down to the National Socialist, the Nazi layers.
[00:14:09] In other words, we can also see that the building yard area here was not only demolished,
[00:14:13] but also massive restructuring and leveling since the 1960s,
[00:14:17] but probably even later, in the 70s and 80s,
[00:14:20] we can see that in the material found in the leveling layers.
[00:14:23] And we then reached this depth partly by manual excavation,
[00:14:27] but also partly by using a mini excavator,
[00:14:30] and then actually reached a depth of 1.70 meters,
[00:14:33] then really hit the last remains of this accommodation barrack 1.
[00:14:37] Tobias: Because you already mentioned the finds briefly, what were there?
[00:14:42] or maybe just as an example, all the additional material,
[00:14:48] in addition to the remains of the foundations or the remains that came to light?
[00:14:53] Barbara: The majority of the finds, I have to be honest,
[00:14:56] is basically garbage from the time since the building yard was built,
[00:14:59] that it's what we find in the leveling layers.
[00:15:02] But we have the last few centimeters, so to speak,
[00:15:05] before these barrack remains in the form of pile foundations,
[00:15:08] concrete foundations came out, relatively very little,
[00:15:12] but finds were made, but probably from the time of the emergency housing estate,
[00:15:16] which existed in these barracks until the 1960s.
[00:15:21] And it's partly about everyday crockery and flower pots, but above all about
[00:15:26] simple packaging material that really dates back to the 50s and 60s.
[00:15:30] That was actually more from the everyday life of the people who lived there in the post-war period
[00:15:35] who moved there because of the housing shortage and then lived there until the 60s
[00:15:41] lived there.
[00:15:42] From the time of the camp itself, we actually have almost only the few findings of the
[00:15:48] building structures that have been preserved, which is hardly surprising when you look at
[00:15:52] when you consider that the AEL [labor education camp] itself basically only existed for a few years, so actually
[00:15:57] only a good four years and then really several years, so almost 20 years through
[00:16:04] this use as an emergency housing estate actually gave it a completely different function, it was
[00:16:08] originally this detention context.
[00:16:10] Tobias: And especially the barracks, they weren't built to a high standard.
[00:16:15] Barbara: Yes, so what was built down there, we actually know that from the construction documents
[00:16:20] in advance, they were so-called RAD barracks, that is, barracks that were originally built for the
[00:16:24] Reich Labor Service, but which were then actually converted into barracks during the Nazi era
[00:16:29] were used on a large scale, especially in the regime's various forced labor camps
[00:16:34] in concentration camps, in forced labor camps, but also in labor education camps
[00:16:39] in the Reichenau.
[00:16:40] These are basically makeshift buildings, which are mainly made of wood and then, however
[00:16:46] so depending on how long you actually want to use these barracks then a different
[00:16:50] substructure can have.
[00:16:51] So it can be concreted, it can be laid with strip foundations or like us
[00:16:56] the Reichenau could prove archaeologically, through actually a
[00:17:00] very simple pile foundation.
[00:17:02] And I think the essential thing dran is that you simply have to realize that the
[00:17:07] is of course not the most productive excavation from an archaeological point of view that we have
[00:17:11] at the sites of Nazi crimes, precisely because of the degree of overbuilding.
[00:17:17] But I think we're also learning a lot about the subsequent use of these areas
[00:17:20] and how quickly such crime sites can be erased from public memory by
[00:17:24] reuse, but then also through such radical demolition, as happened in the 60s
[00:17:28] could also disappear.
[00:17:30] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Let's perhaps move away from the Reichenau labor education camp for a moment.
[00:17:39] You've already spoken, it would be nice if there were more excavations, more archaeological ones too
[00:17:48] Excavations on buildings from the Nazi era or camps from the Nazi era, where would it be from your
[00:17:54] point of view or would there be other meaningful places where it would also, as I said, be
[00:18:00] would be good to excavate archaeologically or at least to carry out surveys, geophysical
[00:18:10] inspections, can you think of anything off the top of your head?
[00:18:14] Barbara: Yes, so if we look specifically at Tyrol, of course, we now have a
[00:18:17] quite a good overview of where there were at least storage locations, because in the last few years they have also been
[00:18:21] the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments has carried out extensive surveys of sites and
[00:18:27] not only from this survey, but partly because the foundations of the barracks are still
[00:18:30] are still visible above ground, we know of many camp sites where we have not yet found such massive
[00:18:34] overbuilding.
[00:18:35] That's the case in Haiming, for example, or in areas near Schwaz and Kematen,
[00:18:40] where forced labor camps were built, especially for the war industry.
[00:18:44] But I'm also thinking of Vorarlberg, for example, along the Illwerke route in Montafon,
[00:18:48] that was a few years ago, which means we also surveyed [investigated] areas where we simply
[00:18:52] where there was actually no subsequent development and where some of the
[00:18:56] structure is still superficially recognizable, precisely because of the foundations that have been laid through the
[00:19:00] turf or through the forest floor.
[00:19:03] And of course these are all areas where we could potentially achieve better archaeological
[00:19:08] preservation, simply because the overprinting is not so high.
[00:19:11] But I actually think that we shouldn't restrict it just because of this overdevelopment
[00:19:15] should.
[00:19:16] I think archaeology always has two functions.
[00:19:18] One is really from a scientific perspective, that of course we try to
[00:19:22] want to find out as much as possible about a historical site and what happened there.
[00:19:26] So, of course, extensive preservation is always an advantage.
[00:19:29] But archaeology is actually, I would say, more of an intervention mode
[00:19:34] or a way of simply re-engaging with the past and its history again and again
[00:19:38] its significance for the present.
[00:19:40] And accordingly, I believe that with the many camps that have existed throughout Austria
[00:19:44] that have existed throughout Austria during this time, there is always the possibility of using archaeology as a kind of
[00:19:49] as a practice, so to speak, in order to engage with different interest groups on site
[00:19:55] to deal with these places in a new way.
[00:19:57] What then comes out, in the end, some things we can estimate quite well in advance, some things
[00:20:00] perhaps less so, and of course it needs to be scientifically processed afterwards.
[00:20:04] But I think archaeology is always a good way of interacting,
[00:20:09] to simply contribute to a visualization of these situations in the past
[00:20:13] and thus also motivate and promote a new confrontation.
[00:20:17] And we actually see that in a lot of projects.
[00:20:19] That is actually, I would like to say, the origin of archaeology, of the recent
[00:20:25] past, which actually began in the 1980s, for example in Germany
[00:20:28] started in Germany, for example, which was often really "grassroots initiatives", we would say today.
[00:20:34] So people from the local environment actually started to search for clues
[00:20:38] to confront themselves directly with the history of National Socialism on the ground.
[00:20:42] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Your results, now I'll jump back to the Reichenau labor camp, the results
[00:20:53] of the excavation work, your findings, will they or are they also available to the general public?
[00:21:02] public, are there, have they been published, except of course,
[00:21:08] I know there are newspaper articles, I think in the regional papers, but also in
[00:21:13] the TT, probably still available online anyway, but is there also a, I'll say now,
[00:21:17] more comprehensive report that will appear?
[00:21:20] Barbara: That's in the making right now, so to speak, also or almost in the Druck, it will on the one hand
[00:21:25] of course there will be publications where we will also present the results in depth
[00:21:30] to a scientific audience on the one hand, but also to a broader public.
[00:21:34] Here in Innsbruck, for example, we have also worked together with AFIN, the
[00:21:40] archaeological research network Innsbruck, we also take part there, which is more of a broad
[00:21:44] effective newsletter, they have also published shorter reports there.
[00:21:48] But I think that, especially when the new concept for the memorial site is actually implemented
[00:21:54] that will also include didactic materials for programs for schoolgirls, so to speak
[00:21:59] and schoolchildren or other interested population groups, so that we can of course
[00:22:04] also like to incorporate the results of archaeological research and, of course
[00:22:09] also make it available.
[00:22:11] And I believe that aerial photo analysis in particular plays a very important role here
[00:22:15] part, because it simply gives you the opportunity to see these spatial dimensions again,
[00:22:19] which are really difficult to comprehend today because of the degree of overbuilding
[00:22:24] to visualize them better and to give people a really spatial
[00:22:29] access to these places and these storage areas.
[00:22:33] Tobias: Is there anything else we should mention about your work in the Reichenau labor education camp?
[00:22:41] that we have forgotten in our conversation?
[00:22:44] Barbara: Well, I think that you can perhaps break it down a bit if you look at
[00:22:48] these different steps of archaeological research, is that we have to deal with different things,
[00:22:53] which methods we use or whether we look at it from a bird's eye view, so to speak
[00:22:57] or whether we really go into the ground, we simply have very different standards in the
[00:23:01] basically, looking at it and of course getting different information out of it.
[00:23:05] Which is a really exciting aspect for me and that's not specifically for
[00:23:10] surprising for Reichenau, but that's what we see in many other projects as well
[00:23:13] is, of course, that through this view from or from this aerial view
[00:23:18] actually quite a lot about the spatial development and the planning system during
[00:23:23] the Nazi era.
[00:23:25] On the one hand, there is, so to speak, what you intend, what you plan, what you estimate
[00:23:28] and what you actually implement.
[00:23:30] And that's something that we can actually break down quite well using various aerial images
[00:23:34] can do.
[00:23:35] On the one hand, how these areas are actually spatially structured and divided up.
[00:23:39] What was really exciting to see, for example, is that we, so
[00:23:44] we have the labor education camp in Reichenau on the one hand and north of it
[00:23:47] towards the Inn there was actually a, I always say it's a multifunctional complex,
[00:23:53] so a camp that was run by the city of Innsbruck, by the Reichspost
[00:23:56] and the Reichsbahn, where forced laborers and prisoners of war were imprisoned
[00:24:00] were then also exploited in Innsbruck.
[00:24:02] And we can actually understand quite well from the aerial photographs how these on the one hand
[00:24:07] administrative structure, but also these different groups
[00:24:11] of detainees are reflected in the spatial planning.
[00:24:14] In that there were always additional buildings, but also always
[00:24:18] the fence demarcations within the camp to separate these groups and areas actually
[00:24:22] reflected.
[00:24:23] And that is also a very important aspect in order to understand how to actually
[00:24:29] this discrimination against different groups, but also administrative management then
[00:24:33] in reality.
[00:24:34] And that works very strongly, for example, through the structuring of space.
[00:24:38] Excitingly, we see this dynamic that we actually have in this northern camp
[00:24:42] are not in the labor education camp.
[00:24:44] There we can actually say that pretty much from the beginning the entire complex was built as a building stock
[00:24:49] was built, actually, at least as it was originally planned and
[00:24:54] then relatively little actually changed in terms of the internal structure.
[00:24:57] And of course that also speaks for a certain continuity of the purpose of this
[00:25:01] camp, that it was really administered by the Gestapo, a high degree of discipline from the beginning
[00:25:07] from the beginning.
[00:25:08] And on the other hand, we can also see in the interface with other historical
[00:25:13] sources such as oral tradition through the aerial photographs,
[00:25:17] certain events that, for example, survivors report more concretely.
[00:25:22] Tobias: Because you just mentioned it, the thing I completely forgot,
[00:25:26] Of course there are oral sources, oral traditions, contemporary witnesses,
[00:25:32] etc.
[00:25:33] How, because there's always the saying that the contemporary witness is the historian's greatest enemy,
[00:25:40] Of course, that's also an exaggeration.
[00:25:44] But how do you take that to heart?
[00:25:49] Do you take it to heart?
[00:25:51] But of course you have to examine it critically?
[00:25:53] Barbara: Well, I don't think you can give a general answer as to what's really important here,
[00:25:57] that we first of all simply approach these different strands of tradition as sources
[00:26:01] which all have their justification, which all need their criticism, of course.
[00:26:05] And that we then, depending on what we're researching, really try to find out,
[00:26:09] compare these different strands of tradition with each other and find out,
[00:26:12] where they confirm each other.
[00:26:13] Where are perhaps blind spots in one tradition that we can feel through the other
[00:26:17] and where do they contradict each other.
[00:26:19] I would argue that this is not only challenging with testimonies,
[00:26:23] because, of course, testimonies, I think, have long been so important in historiography
[00:26:27] a bit disreputable because people say, yes, this is memory and this is of course
[00:26:30] overprinted.
[00:26:31] That's true, of course.
[00:26:32] On the other hand, of course, it's a very central source, because it's basically
[00:26:35] experience values and how they are processed.
[00:26:38] But of course you shouldn't confuse that with a documentary or a factual report.
[00:26:43] But that doesn't mean that contemporary witness reports don't contain information
[00:26:47] that simply reflect a historical reality.
[00:26:50] I think you just have to take that into account in the reappraisal and for that
[00:26:55] it is, of course, also necessary from an archaeological point of view that we work closely
[00:26:58] work closely with historians who can also help us to apply the necessary criticism
[00:27:02] to apply the necessary criticism.
[00:27:03] That worked really fantastically in the project.
[00:27:06] But it was similar with the written sources.
[00:27:09] I know there's always such a tendency to assume that as soon as we have administrative
[00:27:13] written material, to use that as a fact check.
[00:27:16] And that mag can sometimes be justified, but again, we always have to keep that in mind,
[00:27:21] Written material is also something that is created, produced by certain groups in the population,
[00:27:26] with intentions.
[00:27:28] Some things are well documented, some are omitted, some are perhaps even
[00:27:31] even falsified.
[00:27:32] So here, too, source criticism is important.
[00:27:33] And what we see very often in archaeology, especially with camp buildings, is that it,
[00:27:38] there is a planning phase and what you imagine, so to speak, and then there is
[00:27:41] a dynamic in the realization, which also changes in part with the war,
[00:27:46] where we see that in the buildings and also in the use that we can make of them through the
[00:27:49] archaeology, there are changes that we cannot find in the written sources
[00:27:53] not found in the written sources.
[00:27:54] There's also an example from the labor education camp.
[00:27:56] A very important element, actually, which apparently played a major role in the planning for a long time
[00:28:00] role in the planning of the AEL was that it was planned to build a prisoner barrack somewhere for political prisoners
[00:28:06] prisoners, which was not originally intended as a detention group for the
[00:28:09] focus.
[00:28:10] There are planning documents for this, which are also very advanced, including an extensive
[00:28:14] correspondence to the point that you can even see where it should be set up and we can
[00:28:19] actually refer to the aerial photographs in this case and say that this is
[00:28:22] has not been implemented.
[00:28:23] Whatever, there may be a paper trail, but it's not yet localized in the
[00:28:27] Archives.
[00:28:28] We can definitely tell what's really becoming actual inventory, so to speak.
[00:28:31] These are small things now, where it's really only about historically small specifics
[00:28:35] but of course that can also grow.
[00:28:38] We have examples from archaeological research in Germany, for example, from forced labor camps,
[00:28:42] In Brandenburg, for example, there are a lot of projects where we are using archaeology, for example
[00:28:47] really deep insight into the living conditions of different groups of prisoners,
[00:28:51] which we don't find at all in the paper trail.
[00:28:53] Kleinmachnow is such an example, that was also a camp where on the one hand really
[00:28:58] employees of the companies working there were housed, but also forced laborers, forced civilian laborers,
[00:29:03] prisoners of war and even concentration camp prisoners.
[00:29:06] And we see that apparently the companies that ran these camps were then quite
[00:29:10] systematically, depending on which category of people they imprisoned there,
[00:29:14] saved on building materials or infrastructure.
[00:29:18] So for the free laboring population, so to speak, there are well-heated
[00:29:22] Barracks with washing facilities and sanitary facilities.
[00:29:24] For the civilian forced laborers, this is already downgraded, where there are actually only so
[00:29:29] smaller furnaces and no permanently installed sanitary facilities in the barracks until then actually
[00:29:35] to the barracks for Soviet prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates, which no longer even had a
[00:29:40] heating actually.
[00:29:41] And that's what I mean, with archaeology, we actually see things on a human level
[00:29:46] level quite often
[00:29:47] what does it actually mean to be imprisoned there in certain conditions and to be able to drinnen
[00:29:51] to have to live there?
[00:29:52] On the one hand, it's the ideology, the persecution and the categorization that takes place institutionally
[00:29:57] takes place through violence against people, but then also in the implementation of course
[00:30:01] of the respective life situation.
[00:30:03] And that is the access that we have above all through archaeology, in which we can really
[00:30:06] can look at this material component. [Outro music]
[00:30:08] Tobias: Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the
[00:30:31] audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.
Transcription
[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the fourth episode of our dritten season of Archivwörtig,
[00:00:07] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive. Today we are talking about the culture of remembrance and
[00:00:13] places of remembrance in general. For this I have university help with Ingrid Böhler
[00:00:18] for this. Ingrid Böhler is a senior scientist at the University of Innsbruck and head of the
[00:00:24] of the Institute for Contemporary History there. Together we approach the big topic of
[00:00:30] culture of remembrance and talk about definitions of the term and its connection
[00:00:35] with places of remembrance, how the culture of remembrance has developed in Austria and look with
[00:00:41] the points in time, a local example in Innsbruck.
[00:00:44] [Intro-Musi] Tobias: Dear Ingrid, thank you for finding the time to talk to me today. Our superordinate
[00:01:05] The topic of the drith season is the Reichenau labor education camp and the associated
[00:01:11] Redesign of a contemporary memorial site. With this memorial site, of course, the
[00:01:18] big word remembrance culture and place of remembrance. For this reason
[00:01:24] I invited your expertise to simply talk more generally about the term and perhaps
[00:01:32] let's just start like this and see if you can give us a, let's say, university definition
[00:01:38] in the academic circles of remembrance culture.
[00:01:42] Ingrid: Yes, hello Tobias, thank you for the invitation and for your first question, it's a dangerous one,
[00:01:50] because if you ask about the university definition, there is of course a great risk that
[00:01:55] it gets complicated. And the word "culture of remembrance" has actually become so popular
[00:02:02] in historical studies, but also among everyone who somehow has something to do with institutionalized
[00:02:08] memory that you can already complain that it is inflationary and
[00:02:13] it appears in very different contexts and what exactly does it mean now?
[00:02:18] I'm picking up a bit on this advance or the advancedriof this term in, so to speak
[00:02:28] the everyday language of historical studies can be dated back to the 90s, to
[00:02:37] the beginning of the 90s perhaps, and there are various processes behind it.
[00:02:45] So I would just put it very crisply and simply, we all know,
[00:02:50] when we think about Austria and especially about contemporary history related to Austria, that
[00:02:56] there is a censorship, that is the Waldheim years. Waldheim was elected Federal President in 1986
[00:03:04] and we all know what happened in connection with this election campaign
[00:03:09] issues relevant to the politics of the past and history were on the table. There
[00:03:15] we also learned to recognize that up to that point, there was a chapter that was burdensome
[00:03:20] and burdensome, of our own recent history and tried todrängt,
[00:03:26] to forget it. And as is so often the case in history, as Marx also said, so
[00:03:33] history develops, that is, through thesis and antithesis, the pendulum
[00:03:38] swings once in one direction and then again in the other and so to the
[00:03:42] ForgettingdrÃand forgetting, then today the most intense remembrance and remembering and commemorating.
[00:03:48] And accompanying this, of course, there is also a focus here on different levels and in different ways
[00:03:55] Before and through talking about remembrance and its meaning in contemporary society
[00:04:01] and yes, and that brings us to the culture of remembrance. The culture of remembrance, if you want to
[00:04:07] in a general sense, that means the use of history in the present
[00:04:11] public for a specific purpose. And that purpose is to create collective
[00:04:19] identity with it or to secure it. And that is of course also something
[00:04:24] very contemporary. Tobias: A question about that. Especially in the German-speaking
[00:04:29] area, of course, remembrance culture or is very strongly connected with the Holocaust,
[00:04:35] with the Nazi era, although the term itself does not presuppose that. Is it
[00:04:41] it was only through the Waldheim Affair that the term became so strong in our country?
[00:04:48] emerged, so strongly linked to the Nazi era, or is it difficult
[00:04:53] to grasp at all? Ingrid: To be honest, I'm not sure about that. Of course
[00:04:58] the memory of National Socialism or of the Second World War in general
[00:05:05] received an enormous boost in the 1990s. That had to do with the fact that a generational change
[00:05:13] had already taken place before that. So the generation of veterans, the war veterans
[00:05:21] gradually retired and therefore lost influence, public influence
[00:05:29] lost. That's one storyline that triggered these dynamics. Another one that
[00:05:36] just as important, has to do with the fact that the Cold War came to an end in 1989/91.
[00:05:43] And before that, the Cold War, which ended very soon, an incredibly short time after the Second World War
[00:05:51] World War II and defined a completely new international situation, so to speak, [00:05:58
[00:05:58] led to the fact that, for reasons of expediency, the issue of the Second World War
[00:06:04] was somehow pushed aside. For example, they had to somehow bring the Federal Republic into the
[00:06:09] integrate it into the Western camp. And if you are constantly reminded that you are the Nazi successor country,
[00:06:16] then perhaps it's not necessarily good for the climate within the alliance. Or I mean,
[00:06:24] how are Germany and France supposed to get along with each other again if you're constantly
[00:06:29] reminded of what happened in the decades before, in other words the Franco-German relationship
[00:06:35] is a good example. It's not just about National Socialism and the Second
[00:06:39] World War II, but now we are together in an economic alliance, so the
[00:06:45] beginning European integration, the Marshall Plan, then the beginnings of the European Economic Community
[00:06:55] etc. and on the other side NATO. So in short, there were many good reasons why the
[00:07:01] issue was simply pushed aside. These considerations, which were necessary for decades
[00:07:06] were necessary for decades no longer existed after the end of the Cold War.
[00:07:13] On the one hand, the Iron Curtain fell. Many of those affected by the crimes against humanity of the
[00:07:20] National Socialism lived behind the Iron Curtain or the crimes
[00:07:25] happened there and now these memories were suddenly accessible in a different way
[00:07:31] accessible. So that was another very important reason why you were suddenly confronted with a
[00:07:40] new intensity towards this time and also the significance of what happened during this time,
[00:07:49] that happened before 1945, what it means for the present and what is derived from it,
[00:07:56] in terms of necessary actions. On the one hand, practically speaking, for the former Tatar societies
[00:08:03] the division of Europe and the world during the Cold War meant that, after all, with justified
[00:08:10] claims for compensation were not confronted. That, too, has gone beyond the Iron Curtain
[00:08:15] did not work across the Iron Curtain. And there was a catch-up process and yes, that also affected these
[00:08:23] societies or the governments were forced to deal with it. So it's
[00:08:29] one thing led to another. Tobias: And I think, playing right into that, there was also talk of
[00:08:35] Vranitzky. That was, I have to be careful not to say something wrong. But I think,
[00:08:40] we started in the mid-90s... Ingrid: 1991. Tobias: 1991... Ingrid: Yes, summer 91. Tobias: Where we then also for the first time the guilt or the
[00:08:50] Austria's perpetration of the crimes was declared for the first time. Before that there was always only
[00:08:55] only ever talked about the role of victim. Ingrid: Exactly. So Chancellor Franz Vranitzky apologizes in the context of
[00:09:02] a parliamentary speech, but it was not announced that he would address this topic.
[00:09:08] That was also surprising for the Austrian National Council at the time. But he comes up with
[00:09:13] this topic and formulated something like an admission of guilt. So a responsibility for
[00:09:20] complicity in the major crimes of National Socialism and he also apologizes.
[00:09:24] And that was a historical-political censure for Austria. So a central one
[00:09:32] stage in the official, i.e. also state-sponsored, turning away from the
[00:09:39] the lifelong lie of the Second Republic, namely the victim thesis. That you yourself were the first victim of the
[00:09:45] Nazi aggression and therefore cannot be held responsible for what happened afterwards
[00:09:52] can be held responsible. But this process shows two things very clearly, that this
[00:10:00] historical-political and thus also memory-cultural corrections did not simply fall from the
[00:10:06] fall from the sky, the result of a higher insight or morality or ethos, so to speak,
[00:10:16] but that they are always somehow embedded in political processes. And in this case,
[00:10:21] so in terms of domestic policy, there was a very clear hanger for Vranitzky and that was shortly before a
[00:10:28] saying of Jörg Haider, then party chairman of the FPÖ, who spoke of the proper employment policy
[00:10:42] of the National Socialists. There's no need to go into detail, but that is of course
[00:10:49] was a statement that could not be allowed to stand. And so that was the domestic political
[00:10:58] context. At the same time, in terms of foreign policy, you were under Druck at the time, because you had
[00:11:03] had applied to join Brussels Europe and the EC in 1989, and of course that was about
[00:11:14] also about what kind of adruck you leave behind or make with the negotiating partners
[00:11:20] and, of course, taking a clear position with regard to historical policy.
[00:11:29] That was also part of the entry ticket to Brussels Europe. And so this
[00:11:37] signal Vranitzky also wanted to send. So there was simply an international or
[00:11:44] foreign policy Druck that was at play here as an amplifier. Tobias: That means you could also say that,
[00:11:52] if we want to summarize this again very briefly, that there are internal insights,
[00:11:58] but there is also a very strong Druinfluence on our own culture of remembrance or do you see
[00:12:04] not see it that way? Ingrid: Well, in the case of Austria's handling of National Socialism, it was clearly the case,
[00:12:11] that Austria was able to duck away for so long had to do with Austria's specific situation
[00:12:19] after 1945. Austria was a small country, but it belonged to the Western camp. It
[00:12:28] somehow found it easy to somehow also position itself in the international political arena
[00:12:34] irrelevance to be able to afford these lifelong lies. And then over time, especially through a
[00:12:45] different situation, it was then necessary step by step to come up with something.
[00:12:51] Waldheim was also something or the attitude that Waldheim represented in the election campaign, yes,
[00:12:59] in relation to his own past as a Wehrmacht officer in the Balkans, which was so typical
[00:13:06] for this generation of Austrian participants in the war. Of course, that has something to say about his
[00:13:12] character, yes, this deflecting and mendacious behavior that he simply displayed
[00:13:19] has put on. So this obdurate lack of understanding. Tobias: And the stories with the he was never with the party,
[00:13:27] but his horse was, or these things, where there's this Waldheim horse, which one,
[00:13:32] I think you can still see in the House of History. Ingrid: It's no longer there
[00:13:35] in the House of Austrian History, but has moved to the Vienna Museum, that's another story.
[00:13:40] But yes, of course that has provoked a lot of controversy, yes, but this lack of insight,
[00:13:48] that Kurt Waldheim displayed and, after all, he was also a former
[00:13:55] UN Secretary General, who simply made sure that this was observed internationally
[00:14:00] was observed internationally and commented on internationally and then Waldheim also comes one year
[00:14:05] later, after he is elected, on the watch list, so he can no longer travel to the US.
[00:14:10] All this has simply forced the official Austria and the political parties in Austria
[00:14:17] forced them to take a stand. Of course, as I said, this generational change that
[00:14:24] was already noticeable in the 80s and the public too
[00:14:29] in Austria has become more critical. But, as I said, the older Druck always plays a role
[00:14:35] plays a role and what happens afterwards, for example that it then comes to the appointment
[00:14:42] a historical commission around the 00s, for example, where too little has been
[00:14:48] researched chapters of Austria's involvement in National Socialism, so with really
[00:14:56] a lot of money and a very large team. That, too, has to do with this
[00:15:06] consequence of the changed circumstances and the need to work with, for example
[00:15:15] these restitution claims that suddenly came up.
[00:15:20] So maybe we can all remember, maybe you can't, but I can still remember. So
[00:15:25] Suddenly Klimt or Schiele paintings that were lent abroad for exhibition,
[00:15:32] were no longer returned because it suddenly became clear that they were aryanized art
[00:15:42] art objects were involved. So various things were at play here and the result
[00:15:49] was a corresponding dynamic. Tobias: I can also imagine, because I just realized that during
[00:15:55] your explanations, it was also pretty much at the time when there was an exhibition
[00:16:01] about the members of the Wehrmacht, where a documentary film was then made
[00:16:08] was made of the, unfortunately I can't remember the name, where then really
[00:16:15] the exhibition was on its way and people went in and looked at the exhibition
[00:16:18] and then discussed it, some of them were still relatives, where it was then
[00:16:24] was about the clean image of the Wehrmacht, what they did under the pretext of
[00:16:30] were normal soldiers, were not involved in war crimes and so on, where there was a long
[00:16:35] time also with the white vest of the Wehrmacht and so on, which is completely absurd and
[00:16:41] then there are really sometimes heated discussions between former members of the
[00:16:46] Wehrmacht at these exhibitions. I think this documentation,
[00:16:51] because this one, what's it called, is definitely, I think, also on YouTube
[00:16:57] is also quite interesting to look up. Ingrid: The Wehrmacht exhibition, which was organized by Germany
[00:17:04] then also came to Austria, was certainly also an important step in the culture of remembrance
[00:17:13] step, a stage in terms of correcting our view of National Socialism and the Nazis
[00:17:23] Second World War. And the Wehrmacht exhibition,
[00:17:28] really made waves and once again it became clearer than ever that
[00:17:38] there is such a thing as collective memories and they are not always compatible with each other. So
[00:17:46] this generation of war veterans has created its own narrative. Like
[00:17:53] do we remember National Socialism? Yes, preferably in the form that we did in Russia
[00:18:00] defended the fatherland. So how is that supposed to work in a war of aggression against the Soviet Union?
[00:18:08] so far away from Austria, yes, that's not entirely logical and not entirely rational, but it worked
[00:18:16] worked. And part of this narrative was, of course, that you yourself also somehow
[00:18:24] suffered somehow. So you had to endure the hardships of war... Tobias: You also had to cope yourself, didn't you? Ingrid: Exactly,
[00:18:33] endure the many war invalids, the traumatized, the family, the people at home,
[00:18:40] yes, who suffered from the stress of the war. That was sort of the dominant
[00:18:46] narrative. And a later generation, who then also went to this Wehrmacht exhibition,
[00:18:55] no longer found it so convincing. And they were able to deal with what was shown there,
[00:19:00] that the Wehrmacht was indeed involved in war crimes. And where they
[00:19:05] perhaps didn't help directly, but in any case witnessed, yes, they could do with what
[00:19:11] do with it. She got involved. And when they were in the exhibition together,
[00:19:17] then that sometimes led to such heated discussions. But I mean, especially Waldheim,
[00:19:25] the Wehrmacht officer Waldheim, the war participant Waldheim and how he himself
[00:19:33] or the Wehrmacht exhibition and the controversies that happened there
[00:19:41] are quite typical of the fact that there is actually something like a generational memory
[00:19:46] and that there is not always compatibility between the generations. So,
[00:19:54] that can also happen with other topics that are perhaps less stressful now and less
[00:20:02] associated with necessary self-criticism. Tobias: Because you mentioned the generational change,
[00:20:11] is it also helpful from your point of view that, in the case of the NS period, a great many
[00:20:17] documents, records and even photographs are still available, which can be used in that sense
[00:20:23] sense, be it the critical examination, is that helpful or is it not absolutely
[00:20:32] necessary in order to then approach the topic of the culture of remembrance and perhaps also
[00:20:37] criticize or question earlier collective memory? Ingrid: What you're talking about,
[00:20:45] is of course also something that has to do with historical research. When new sources emerge,
[00:20:52] new evidence, so to speak, of Nazi crimes or of the involvement of certain groups of individual
[00:21:04] personalities etc., yes, that just leads to a necessary revision and what
[00:21:11] really surprising, even though we've been dealing with contemporary history for many decades now
[00:21:18] reappraisal of the Nazi era, something new keeps popping up, yes, and we then have to
[00:21:26] learn ourselves again and again, okay, there was a blind spot, on the one hand because we still have the material
[00:21:33] and on the other hand, because of course the present is also changing somehow and
[00:21:38] for a long time, certain groups of victims who were persecuted under National Socialism,
[00:21:47] simply received too little public recognition. This includes the group of Wehrmacht desserts,
[00:21:52] if we're back on the subject of the Veteran's Society of the Second Republic, the Wehrmacht desserts
[00:22:00] were for this narrative, we heroically defended the fatherland, of course very disturbing and
[00:22:08] That's why they weren't given the necessary recognition for the longest time. it was only in 2009,
[00:22:15] that this group was rehabilitated, other victim groups, homosexuals for example,
[00:22:22] were also ignored for a long time because they also lived through the longest period in the Second Republic
[00:22:27] were also criminalized, there are continuities between the time before National Socialism,
[00:22:34] for the Nazi era and afterwards, yes, and these blind spots, they crop up from time to time,
[00:22:41] because our present is also changing and these questions are then asked in the present
[00:22:46] and then there's also material, ideally or often, when you have a question,
[00:22:51] then you can also find the source material. That's how images of history change and that's also how they change
[00:23:02] the culture of remembrance. Tobias: The culture of remembrance is also very strongly linked to places of remembrance.
[00:23:08] Do you see places of remembrance as part of the culture of remembrance or should they be separated from each other...
[00:23:17] So, what do you mean by separate from each other? It's difficult, of course. But are they still there specifically?
[00:23:22] how they are to be interpreted or would you say that they are always linked to the culture of remembrance?
[00:23:28] Let's maybe take an example, I don't know.
[00:23:31] Ingrid: The Bergisel. Tobias: The Bergisel, for example [both laugh]. Of course, it's clearly connected to 1809. If it stands alone, maybe it's not,
[00:23:45] Is it already? It's difficult, I think.
[00:23:48] Ingrid: In any case, there is a conceptual proximity between the word "culture of remembrance" and the term "place of remembrance".
[00:23:57] Looking at it again from an academic perspective. Now I'll repeat myself again.
[00:24:07] By culture of remembrance we mean all activities and phenomena that somehow take place in the public sphere
[00:24:18] and the public can also be a partial public. But in any case, they relate to history for the purpose
[00:24:25] the creation of a collective identity. So it's always a kind of social self-insurance.
[00:24:33] So the self-insurance of a group, that's us. That's where we come from.
[00:24:39] But the message can also be, that's not us, yes. Tobias: Yes [both laugh]. Ingrid: But in any case, it's a necessary understanding of that,
[00:24:49] what you refer to as a collective and thus also guarantee your own cohesion.
[00:24:59] And groups want to be long-lasting, they want to endure. So there's a connection between your own past,
[00:25:08] their own present and their own future. And that's why you have to try to consolidate these memories
[00:25:16] and somehow organize it, institutionalize it. We set up memorials for this. We invent rituals for that.
[00:25:26] That's what the Bergisel stands for [both laugh]. And the Bergisel offers many points of connection.
[00:25:35] How one remembers the figure of Andreas Hofer in 1809. Much of this is, of course, highly contrived.
[00:25:45] A certain image is created. And with this image you create your own idea of Tyrolean history
[00:25:53] and therefore also of what the Tyroleans are like. And that brings us to a place of remembrance.
[00:26:05] A place of memory as a concept in what is called memory studies in history or cultural studies,
[00:26:16] is a concept that goes back to Pierre Nora. Pierre Nora was a French historian.
[00:26:22] And he invented this concept of the "lieu de mémoire" [French for: place of memory] and by that he meant central points of reference in French national history,
[00:26:38] that endow the collective of the French nation with an identity.
[00:26:45] In part, he imagined this in very concrete spatial terms, applied to Tyrol, the Bergisel, which is actually a place.
[00:26:56] But he was more open about it. They are crystallization points, they are central points of reference.
[00:27:06] And in the case of France, that can also be the Marseillaise, for example, the French national anthem.
[00:27:13] Or a ritual, a specific custom can also be something like a place of remembrance.
[00:27:21] So that's somehow more diverse to think of.
[00:27:26] A certain song can be a place of remembrance.
[00:27:30] A certain image that everyone knows, that has to do with history.
[00:27:35] Now I'm back to Austria. I'm jumping a bit associatively.
[00:27:38] Tobias: If I may jump in there, especially in Innsbruck it would of course be the picture of the Virgin Mary, which is depicted on all house walls, or on very many house walls, for example.
[00:27:48] Ingrid: That's not necessarily something historical.
[00:27:50] Tobias: That's not something historical.
[00:27:52] Ingrid: That's an interesting question. You could think about that in more detail.
[00:27:58] But the giant circular monument at Bergisel is of course a place of remembrance.
[00:28:05] That's exactly what Pierre Nora had in mind, or another image central to the Austrian identity of the Second Republic would of course be the photo of the signing of the State Treaty at the Belvedere.
[00:28:24] But places of remembrance, as Pierre Nora meant them, naturally have the aim of consolidating one's own identity.
[00:28:34] In this context, of course, events with such a positive connotation are more likely to die, even if they partly see the Bergisel battle, i.e. the fight.
[00:28:44] That's not something that's only positive per se, but you can still turn it into a positive story.
[00:28:51] And that's exactly what happened with Andreas Hofer, 1809 and all these things.
[00:28:56] We remember it as a glorious victory, but those who take a closer look at this era put it into perspective,
[00:29:05] just as people have now learned to view the personality and work of Andreas Hofer a little more critically.
[00:29:12] But the Bergisel is a wonderful example for Tyrol of how the use of history is put to use to create identity.
[00:29:27] Political rituals continue to take place at Bergisel, commemorations for Andreas Hofer.
[00:29:34] Yes, they take place there. That's where the provincial governors from both sides of the Brenner gather.
[00:29:42] And they remember it as something that is constitutive for the lasting common connection between the two parts of the country.
[00:29:59] And that also has something very contemporary as its goal. The aim is to create a common identity.
[00:30:08] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Let's perhaps take the leap away from Andreas Hofer and perhaps also your opinion or how you feel about the solution.
[00:30:23] As I said, at the time of our recording, the project for the new Reichenau labor education camp memorial site has not yet been completed.
[00:30:31] But what has been completed, and we both attended the opening, is the timing, i.e. the Innsbruck alternative to the stumbling stones.
[00:30:39] How do you see the implementation of such, in this case, very small places of remembrance that catch your eye when you walk through the city?
[00:30:52] Are you personally satisfied or enthusiastic about this solution, what has been done in Innsbruck?
[00:31:02] Or what is your opinion at this point? It might also be interesting to see.
[00:31:07] Ingrid: Now I'll ask you again about the place of remembrance. The way you've formulated your question, you can show very nicely,
[00:31:16] that place of remembrance has now also become a term that is used in different contexts.
[00:31:24] So, on the one hand, it still stands for Pierre Nora's concept, and place of remembrance is something,
[00:31:33] that has the quality for a group to pass on the shared identity derived from the past to subsequent generations.
[00:31:50] At the times we're talking about here, they're something completely new, we don't yet know whether they can develop this quality,
[00:32:00] whether they can create a sustainable identity for a group in the long term.
[00:32:10] That doesn't have to be for the whole of Innsbruck, but it does have to be for a significant part of it, which is then somehow reflected politically in the local council, etc., etc.
[00:32:21] Tobias: Or in the population. Ingrid: Where there are also groups in the population who say, yes, someone lived in our street who was a victim of National Socialism, a victim of Nazi persecution policies
[00:32:37] and we would like to remember this person or revive their memory.
[00:32:43] And this person is part of our former neighborhood, yes, so we're back with this group.
[00:32:52] And we as the current neighborhood have an interest in not forgetting those who lived here back then.
[00:32:59] If that works, then the points in time will also become places of remembrance in the sense of Pierre Nora, yes.
[00:33:07] I think the nice thing about the points in time is that they have the quality of emerging from civil society.
[00:33:20] So groups from the population can get in touch with you at the city archive and apply.
[00:33:28] A date is to be set here and we as a group will then somehow take care of this date.
[00:33:43] And these are small interventions. They are very individual.
[00:33:49] They relate to one person or perhaps a family.
[00:33:54] They don't take up much space. They are primarily visible to those who live in the vicinity of that moment.
[00:34:05] But of course they're always there somehow in everyday life. You just have to see them.
[00:34:12] So these small, decentralized forms of remembrance are, I believe, a very important and also worthy addition to a cautionary remembrance and commemoration of the National Socialist era.
[00:34:33] [Outro music]
[00:34:48] Tobias: Archivwürrdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.
Transcription
[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the fifth episode of our dritten season of Archivwörtig,
[00:00:05] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive. For today's episode we go to the
[00:00:11] neighboring Free State of Bavaria, more precisely to Dachau. At the Dachau concentration camp memorial site
[00:00:19] I met with the director Gabriele Hammermann for a chat. At the beginning we talk
[00:00:25] about her connections to Innsbruck and the decision to build a new
[00:00:30] memorial site in the Reichenau. We then look at various aspects of the concentration camp memorial site
[00:00:36] Dachau and try to identify parallels to the Reichenau labor education camp.
[00:00:42] [Intor-Musik] Tobias: Dear Gabriele, thank you for the invitation, first of all to the Dachau concentration camp memorial.
[00:01:04] It's also my first visit today. We are recording here and at your place, as you have a connection to the Reichenau labor education camp
[00:01:17] or you are a member of the expert commission. Perhaps it would also be nice if you could tell us
[00:01:26] perhaps briefly explain how this participation in the Historical Commission came about,
[00:01:31] expert commission came about. Gabriele: Yes, I received the invitation from Lukas Morscher,
[00:01:41] the head of the city archives and Irene Heisz and I was very, very pleased because there were just so many
[00:01:49] affected many areas that are now relevant in the former Reichenau labor education camp
[00:01:57] which play a central role for us here at the memorial and which are also relevant in my
[00:02:04] research on forced labor, but also on the concentration camp system.
[00:02:12] And I was very pleased with the many points of contact and also really appreciated the great and
[00:02:22] collegial cooperation in this commission. I think that has also led to the fact that we
[00:02:29] really got to the goal in a very short time and in big steps, so to speak.
[00:02:37] I often find that these discussion processes take considerably longer.
[00:02:47] And in that respect, that's my connection to Innsbruck, a city that I also really love
[00:02:55] beautiful. Tobias: I was just about to say that there have already been visits to Innsbruck, of course
[00:03:00] and vice versa, there was also an excursion by the commission to Dachau,
[00:03:05] if I'm informed correctly. Gabriele: Yes, a few weeks ago they were all here and looked at the
[00:03:12] concentration camp memorial site, but also the outdoor sites here near the memorial site,
[00:03:19] For example, there was a former firing range where over 4,000 Soviet soldiers were buried
[00:03:28] prisoners of war were executed, which we converted into a memorial site in 2014
[00:03:36] with an outdoor exhibition and a place of names. And that was because it was the theme
[00:03:42] outdoor exhibition was also relevant for many of the delegation.
[00:03:48] Tobias: May I perhaps also ask for your thoughts on the or your attitude or opinion on the
[00:03:56] plan for a new memorial site or a contemporary place of remembrance
[00:04:03] at the site of the former labor education camp?
[00:04:08] Gabriele: Yes, I believe that this camp and the aftermath of the camp for the city
[00:04:14] Innsbruck are really of great importance. That essentially goes from 1941 to 1945
[00:04:24] about the history of the Reichenau labor education camp. We really have a lot of
[00:04:30] exciting political discussions, including discussions about the extent to which, for example
[00:04:37] companies came to terms with National Socialism or the forced laborers
[00:04:48] exploited for their production. This is a very, very central issue because the labor education camp
[00:04:56] Reichenau was run by the Gestapo and the companies had a kind of right of suggestion
[00:05:03] and I find that very, very central, how many companies were ultimately involved in this system
[00:05:11] were involved. And there were also uses as prisoner-of-war camps and as Reichspost camps
[00:05:19] and the railroad. And here, too, we're not just at the site in Reichenau, but in the surrounding area
[00:05:27] of the city of Innsbruck with at least 40 branch camps and that shows how close, so to speak, forced labor
[00:05:37] was interwoven with National Socialism, but also with German society, especially during the war
[00:05:44] was. Tobias: The former Dachau concentration camp and the Reichenau labor education camp
[00:05:49] cannot be compared one to one. But I would say that there are parallels that apply to both
[00:05:55] camps, of course not in terms of size and so on, and also in terms of use. So there are
[00:06:01] a lot of differences, of course, but also because I was informed in advance,
[00:06:07] also in terms of the direct subsequent use of the warehouse. Because we have
[00:06:12] in Reichenau or the former camps in Reichenau directly after the war
[00:06:20] a reception camp for DPs, i.e. "displaced persons" [person not living in this place], then of course also for the
[00:06:27] Nazi functionaries, i.e. as a camp, a prison camp so to speak, whereby then the further
[00:06:34] subsequent use in Innsbruck lasted much longer than now in Dachau, you can perhaps
[00:06:40] say something about how you see the comparison or parallels with the Reichenau camp
[00:06:47] and the Dachau camp. Gabriele: The thing is, if we go back to the history between 1941 and 1945
[00:06:55] that it was also a transit camp, the Reichenau or a transit camp for Jews
[00:07:03] Jews to the Mauthausen concentration camp and also to Auschwitz and that is one aspect,
[00:07:11] that is only mentioned in the history of the Dachau concentration camp at the end and only in the context of the
[00:07:18] outer camps. There were also, there were large transports from the satellite camps, above all
[00:07:26] things to the so-called bunker projects, which are projects that have been planned
[00:07:36] to relocate the production of airplanes underground. There were areas in Dachau drei,
[00:07:45] that is the former BMW external warehouse in Allach. There was also a bunker construction project there
[00:07:53] in Mühldorf in the complex and in Kaufering. Mostly Jewish prisoners worked there
[00:08:01] and there were also these transports, especially of sick and emaciated people,
[00:08:07] who could not be squeezed any further in the context of this labor process, who were then just
[00:08:14] also transferred to Auschwitz. Reichenau was also planned in the context of a reception camp for
[00:08:25] Italian workers who had fled. There is also a context, so to speak, with my research.
[00:08:33] I worked on the Italian military internees and, of course, also dealt with the
[00:08:40] topic of forced labor from Italy from 1938, 1939. Exactly, that was also an issue and
[00:08:49] then of course we can now also draw a comparison with the topic of the subsequent use of the
[00:08:57] Dachau concentration camp, which was initially run as a "displayed persons camp" for a few months
[00:09:05] for a few months. From August 1945 until drei years later, for example, as an internment camp for National Socialists
[00:09:15] and then as a refugee camp, primarily for Germans who had fled from the former
[00:09:24] East Germany, who then came here to Dachau and had no, no living space and
[00:09:34] also lived in precarious conditions. Also on the outskirts of the city, similar to Reichenau
[00:09:42] and had difficulties establishing themselves in society, partly because there was a large
[00:09:50] rejection of the immigrants, so to speak. Tobias: Then that's what work is for
[00:09:59] Reichenau education camp, that's when everything was flattened, to put it casually,
[00:10:05] everything was demolished. Fortunately, the camp here in Dachau did not suffer the same fate
[00:10:12] did not happen. It was converted into a memorial site relatively early on, you could say
[00:10:21] has been converted. Can we perhaps go into a little more detail about how the memorial came about?
[00:10:27] Gabriele: This process was a long one. in 1955, the former inmates of the concentration camp
[00:10:34] Dachau came together on an international level to form the International Dachau Committee
[00:10:42] and it was decided that this place, which from the point of view of the former prisoners was completely
[00:10:50] has been used inappropriately. We can go into that in a moment, turn this place into a
[00:10:57] memorial site. But this process took a long time, ten years until 1965 in May
[00:11:06] a memorial could be erected and it actually took an international publicity
[00:11:13] and the moral corrective, the moral significance of the former prisoners of the
[00:11:22] Dachau concentration camp, that a memorial site was created here at this location. In the
[00:11:30] immediate post-war period, for example, there was a suggestion from the local Landrat that the former
[00:11:37] crematorium and that was the only memorial site here on the site of the former
[00:11:44] prisoners' camp, that this crematorium should be demolished and only through international
[00:11:53] initiatives this was prevented. So you can see from that that German society has this
[00:12:01] normalize this place, wanted to overwrite it, wanted to repurpose it, so that the memory of what
[00:12:09] what happened here is completely lost. Tobias: Also a process that in Austria
[00:12:14] clearly interwoven, of course with a different premise than this victim thesis, which is always very
[00:12:21] was always held in advance in order to let this dark time rest for the time being and
[00:12:30] then, of course, in Austria it was only much later that it was dealt with, as it was in Germany,
[00:12:34] where, I would say, it started 20 years earlier, the debate.
[00:12:41] I don't know whether you can confirm that or not, it's always very generalized,
[00:12:46] of coursedrückt but... Gabriele: I think quite a lot has also contributed to the fact that there is a
[00:12:52] judicial punishment of the crimes relatively soon after the end of the war, by the Americans on the
[00:12:59] one side, through the Nuremberg Trial, but I referred to the internment camp,
[00:13:05] the drei years after the end of the war and that is in the context of the so-called Dachau trials
[00:13:13] was also established here. The criminals who were here were practically combed through
[00:13:21] and there were major investigations, very numerous investigations and also trials
[00:13:28] against the SS in the Dachau concentration camp, that was the so-called "parent case" and then also
[00:13:37] against the SS in Mauthausen, Flossenbürg in Buchenwald and in Mittelbau-Dora. So you see
[00:13:47] a very, very important aspect of the judicial punishment of the immediate post-war period and as a result
[00:13:56] of course many of the population learned about the crimes that took place here on the ground
[00:14:02] and they could no longer simply say there was nothing, we knew nothing about it,
[00:14:09] because that was actually a very important social event. Tobias: And I have
[00:14:16] so far only, what do you mean only, but I have visited the memorial site in Mauthausen twice,
[00:14:23] once also the Hartheim memorial, Hartheim Castle and also in Mauthausen, it
[00:14:30] is also made very clear during a guided tour, for example in Mauthausen, up there is
[00:14:34] was the football pitch and the SS guards also played a match there
[00:14:39] played a match against the local football club downstairs, so that's where it was, and when you're up there
[00:14:45] and see how close it is, it's actually very frightening that there are really
[00:14:49] many from or so many say, you didn't know, partly yes, but for the most part it can actually be
[00:14:57] not like that. Gabriele: It's unthinkable, because especially towards the end of the war, and we have already in the area of
[00:15:04] of Reichenau, how big this network of persecution was, there were, we have
[00:15:11] just talked about the forced labor camps, about labor education camps that covered the entire area
[00:15:19] existed in Germany or existed in the German Reich, and the local population has
[00:15:26] also noticed, of course, when the marches went through the towns in the concentration camps
[00:15:31] from the train station to the camp, and especially towards the end of the war there were death marches,
[00:15:42] there was practically this system of satellite camps, concentration camps, the Dachau camp
[00:15:48] has 140 satellite camps in the area of Upper Bavaria above all, but also towards Austria and that is
[00:15:57] of course a topic of constant encounters with the crimes. Tobias: The memorial here in Dachau
[00:16:07] has existed for a very long time now, I would say that the dissemination of knowledge has developed over time
[00:16:13] running time has also changed a lot. The main exhibition has been since 2002/2003, I think,
[00:16:23] I think it's been drin since 2003. We see or...
[00:16:27] Perhaps I can ask you in general about knowledge transfer here in Dachau.
[00:16:33] How do you see the development of the mediation concept or the place of mediation here in Dachau?
[00:16:42] Gabriele: In the beginning there were also former prisoners who were also in the former prisoner camp here,
[00:16:50] That's the part of the memorial site where they gave guided tours, tours with their history,
[00:16:57] Often they were political prisoners, often from the communist resistance, so many
[00:17:05] had already been imprisoned in 1933 and spoke about their many years of experience,
[00:17:15] including the persecution of their families and that was a very, very significant and important time,
[00:17:22] The memorial department, the education department, was only established at the turn of the millennium.
[00:17:32] For many years there were practically tours here on site via seconded teachers and there were also
[00:17:43] various very committed history societies were formed in the area, which filled this vacuum, so to speak, of support
[00:17:54] in the concentration camp memorial site. It was the case for a long time that the state, not so much
[00:18:05] took care of this issue, it only increasingly became an issue in the 80s,
[00:18:13] but actually often based on the commitment of civil society. And as I said,
[00:18:20] an education department from the turn of the millennium, we also tried, of course,
[00:18:27] practically integrate this fund, so to speak, of this civil society initiative
[00:18:36] with the tour guides that we have here on the site. There are now 70 of them and there are actually
[00:18:46] a six-month training course that is very popular, so to speak. We're also on it now,
[00:18:53] continuously retraining speakers and it is important to us that these
[00:19:04] tour guides are also part of the memorial, so they have also become permanent employees of the memorial.
[00:19:13] So it's a long process, you can see that, and if you focus on the content again,
[00:19:21] then since the Beutelsbach Consensus in the memorials, it has been customary not to deal with moral
[00:19:32] over-forming, but rather to promote research-based, open learning here in this place..., yes
[00:19:39] to encourage that, that is very, very important. We want to encourage a critical examination of the role
[00:19:50] also of perpetration, so and society and of course a strong biographical work about the
[00:20:00] former prisoners here, so it's practical that more and more new areas are now also being integrated into our work
[00:20:11] resonates, so to speak. However, we realize that the preparation and follow-up takes much more time,
[00:20:22] than in earlier years, when perhaps more attention was paid to this in school lessons,
[00:20:30] but where there wasn't such a large generational gap. So it's actually very necessary,
[00:20:41] reflection and that's why we're currently rebuilding our education center with
[00:20:51] six new seminar rooms, which will be state of the art in terms of technology and will be geared towards this
[00:21:00] we are very much looking forward to this redesign work. There is always the wish that the memorials
[00:21:09] position themselves on the current political situation, also in their educational work and there
[00:21:21] but we think that it's very, very important to talk about the engagement with the place, so to speak
[00:21:28] questions and not to actively initiate this, but to get the students to ask questions
[00:21:36] to come to conclusions that they have drawn from the tour. You could put it like this.
[00:21:43] Of course, it's also important that the diversity of the visitors has changed a lot
[00:21:52] has changed. We are in an immigration society, in a migration society and that needs
[00:21:58] of course, we also need updated educational programs and here, too, the topic of preparation, follow-up
[00:22:07] is very central. And that brings us to the topic of graphic novels, for example. We are currently
[00:22:16] in the process of establishing a graphic novel that is practically about the posting process and
[00:22:25] this short period of time, how people here went from being an individual to a number. And that's what a
[00:22:35] former prisoner Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz described this in a really incredibly intense way
[00:22:42] and based on his description we created a graphic novel with an office, a film
[00:22:51] which will now be presented soon and where we believe that there simply needs to be another
[00:22:59] a completely different approach. That was the starting point, so we started with the topic of comics
[00:23:07] for example, or graphic novels, through intensive contact with our young
[00:23:15] employees. That is, of course, we have many from the FSJ or in earlier years were
[00:23:23] there were also so-called memorial servants. That was an initiative from Austria. Tobias: I should perhaps briefly say that this is a voluntary
[00:23:30] social year. So in Germany, in Austria, it would be similar to the
[00:23:35] the community service, so to speak, just so that we capture our listeners, so to speak. Gabriele: And we have in the
[00:23:45] contacts with our young employees, we realized what we might be able to develop anew and
[00:23:52] we're very happy about that now. That was an exciting, intensive process and that we can now present it.
[00:24:02] Tobias: Very nice. There is also an archive and a library at the memorial site
[00:24:12] or it's part of the memorial site, an archive and a library. Gabriele: And a large collection. Tobias: And a
[00:24:17] large collection just now. Is that from your point of view, so on the one hand I would like to ask how the
[00:24:23] interaction between the individual, I would now call it departments and whether you see that as a big
[00:24:30] bonus and where there are perhaps difficulties in reconciling the whole thing.
[00:24:36] Gabriele: Well, we sit very closely together here. So the different departments are not in
[00:24:44] different buildings or anything like that, but we've done it deliberately. We're sitting here in the east wing of the
[00:24:51] former commercial building, in the middle of the former site of the former prison camp,
[00:25:00] which is also a special place to work, but only for our listeners: where are we sitting here?
[00:25:13] And as I said, we did that quite deliberately. We have also designed this area
[00:25:20] in consultation with the Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments, so that the historical structure of this
[00:25:26] building is also preserved and in the course of this we also have the archive, library,
[00:25:32] collection reorganized. That was ten years ago now and we have very, very close contact
[00:25:40] with the survivors and the descendants. That means our collection has grown enormously in the meantime
[00:25:47] grown enormously. There were archaeological excavations in the outdoor camp in Allach that I just mentioned. There are
[00:25:56] thousand objects came to the concentration camp memorial site and a whole new exciting field has opened up.
[00:26:03] We offered an exhibition on this and are now also planning the redesign of the historical
[00:26:12] buildings to the memorial site. One of these is the former transformer house,
[00:26:18] which was responsible for the electricity in the camp, i.e. the camp fence, loudspeakers and so on. Tobias: Headlights.
[00:26:24] Gabriele: A lot of elements of terror. This will be the place where the collection of the memorial site will be housed in the future
[00:26:31] and we are also in the process of redesigning the archive and library
[00:26:40] to significantly expand the area. The collaboration is really exciting because the education department
[00:26:48] is located in the immediate vicinity. The scientific department, that's the second branch, so to speak,
[00:26:56] is also close by, so that exhibitions can be planned in practice, but also
[00:27:04] media apps, for example, which we offer here on the subject of art in the concentration camp. So that
[00:27:12] it's very, very important to have short distances. The difficulties that you mentioned
[00:27:19] I think that there are often difficulties from the outside, because, for example, we consider
[00:27:27] we ask ourselves, what do we do today? You have a plan and the plan can actually be implemented after
[00:27:33] few minutes [smiles] because something happens. For example, which makes us very happy, a lot of
[00:27:41] relatives come to the archive to do research. They are here as part of a visit and
[00:27:51] of course we take the time to do this, because this is also a very central upheaval that we are
[00:27:57] right now and contact with the descendants is also very, very important for us. Tobias: Because they are
[00:28:03] just mentioned contact with the descendants, I think that's also very exciting
[00:28:09] and interesting, is there really something new for you in this research?
[00:28:14] new things come to light, because maybe they are still, be it souvenirs, maybe from
[00:28:22] survivors, this is also a point of contact, where an open
[00:28:30] channel of communication then arises beyond the visit and what is there so a bit
[00:28:38] for examples? Gabriele: We have several event formats. One is called Remembrance and Family Memory
[00:28:45] and it's practically about what the concentration camp imprisonment has done to the
[00:28:53] families has done. Those are always very, very moving conversations. We have a second
[00:29:01] format, which is called a multi-generational conversation. We don't just try to get the children involved,
[00:29:09] but also grandchildren, some great-grandchildren here in Dachau and it's very interesting,
[00:29:16] because the different generations each deal with the topic differently within the family
[00:29:23] deal with the topic. It is often the case that the children often knew nothing about the crime here at
[00:29:31] the place, what happened to their fathers and there was a greater openness on the part of the former prisoners
[00:29:39] to talk to their grandchildren or great-grandchildren, who in turn have completely different processing mechanisms
[00:29:47] have completely different ones. We often actually have to deal with art, with media art, with different aspects of art
[00:29:57] aspects of art that have to do with the detention of the relative. Tobias: Are there also sometimes insights
[00:30:09] also the visitor, if the person or the ancestor died here or because
[00:30:18] he was deported from here, that the visitors then come to this conclusion,
[00:30:23] okay, my relative was detained here and they didn't know exactly beforehand
[00:30:29] known beforehand. It's happened quite often. Gabriele: That's what I just reported, where we
[00:30:36] take our time, of course, because it's a very emotional process. When we are here in the archive
[00:30:43] our database, which contains over 200,000 records of former prisoners, so many were in the period
[00:30:51] between 1933 and 1945 here in Dachau, when we find out that the grandfather, the uncle, the father was here,
[00:30:59] was here in Dachau. There were also several very moving invitations from descendants, who were about
[00:31:11] 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war who were murdered in Hebertshausen near Dachau
[00:31:18] by the Dachau SS. And it really was like that, these descendants of the victims knew nothing
[00:31:28] and there are some kind of internet forums where they searched and never stopped searching.
[00:31:36] And our research, we published it in newspapers, so to speak, but also in these
[00:31:44] forums in the former Soviet Union, and because of that, people got in touch with us, who have
[00:31:52] showed us their photo albums and we have corresponding biographies with the photo albums,
[00:31:59] so we were able to show them the history of the people who had been murdered and these were again, so there were
[00:32:06] really no idea where the people remained, where the Soviet prisoners of war
[00:32:11] remained and to come to the place with the group, I think we were 20 people,
[00:32:19] 20 delegations of 20 descendants, that was one of the most moving experiences I had here in this place. [Outro music]
[00:32:47] Tobias: Archivwürrdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.
Transcription
[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the sixth episode of our dritten season of Archivwörtig,
[00:00:05] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive.
[00:00:08] In this episode, we look at the role of urban politics with regard to the culture of remembrance.
[00:00:14] I had the pleasure of welcoming the outgoing City Councillor for Culture Uschi Schwarzl and the outgoing Chair of the Culture Committee Irene Heisz.
[00:00:23] We use the example of the points in time to discuss how commemorative projects are implemented
[00:00:28] and also look to the future towards the end.
[00:00:31] [Intro music] Tobias: Firstly, thank you both very much for finding the time to come and join me for the drith season of our podcast Archivwündig.
[00:00:56] We have the Reichenau labor education camp and the new memorial site of the Reichenau labor education camp as a major overarching topic.
[00:01:05] We then circle around or we swing a bit beyond the topic in the relay
[00:01:11] And of course, to take up a topic like this and the culture of remembrance, places of remembrance, you need a political level,
[00:01:19] it needs political will, it needs political support.
[00:01:22] And that's where I have the advantage with you two, that on the one hand I have the city councillor responsible for culture
[00:01:28] and on the other hand Irene, i.e. Uschi as the councillor responsible for culture and Irene as the chair of the culture committee.
[00:01:36] And, as I said, we are talking about the culture of remembrance as a task of urban politics.
[00:01:44] Perhaps the question to both of you first, where do you see the role of politics in relation to the culture of remembrance?
[00:01:53] Where should it have an impact, where must it have an impact, perhaps also where there are limits, where perhaps politics should take a step back?
[00:02:02] Maybe I'll start with you, Uschi, when I look at you.
[00:02:07] Uschi: Yes, first of all, thank you very much for the invitation.
[00:02:10] It's very exciting for both of us, I think.
[00:02:13] I believe that the culture of remembrance is one of the main tasks of urban cultural policy.
[00:02:23] Not just to create memorials or hold obligatory commemorations on certain days of remembrance,
[00:02:32] but with a very specific content and this content is on the one hand to see where gaps in research can be supported,
[00:02:44] to close these research gaps, these research gaps then also, or the results of this research,
[00:02:53] then to make them accessible to a broad public and this accessibility must pick people up.
[00:03:00] That means, on the one hand, we have to make sure that we investigate the victims and the perpetrators and the places and make them visible
[00:03:10] and we have to make sure that we convey the knowledge, the research, in such a way that it is also embedded in current situations,
[00:03:22] it has to be transformed into the present, so to speak, because I believe
[00:03:26] that historical knowledge in connection with current developments is very important, also for the future of a society.
[00:03:35] Tobias: Same question for you, Irene. Where do you see the role of the city or urban policy in relation to remembrance policy and places of remembrance?
[00:03:46] Irene: Following on from what the councillor said,
[00:03:51] of course I can absolutely subscribe to all of that, there are several problems in the so-called culture of remembrance
[00:04:01] Starting with research gaps, as Uschi has just said. The other thing is contemporary witnesses,
[00:04:09] people who, when we talk about the Dritten Reich, experienced it all themselves and can talk about it themselves,
[00:04:15] there are hardly any left and fewer and fewer every day, so to speak, because they are naturally now at an age
[00:04:24] where their lifespan is manageable. And eyewitness accounts are a verydrucksful possibility,
[00:04:33] to think about a certain time and certain events. Of course, there are now many audio documents,
[00:04:40] interview recordings and so on, but it's different when I go to drÃand listen to something,
[00:04:45] than when I sit opposite a person and can look them in the eye and they tell me what they experienced back then,
[00:04:50] suffered or even committed. The other story is that we fortunately live in a colorful society today,
[00:05:00] in which people from different cultures come together and with different cultural backgrounds,
[00:05:05] also cultural and historical backgrounds. And of course there are also many people drunter,
[00:05:11] for whom the Nazi era, the Dritte Reich, the Second World War, was not a form of incision, of censorship,
[00:05:20] of a dark cloud, as is rightly self-evident for us, in Germany, in Austria,
[00:05:26] in Central Europe, in the entire European region. That means people from other cultures,
[00:05:32] who may have heard about it at school or in some other way, but for whom it is not this very personal
[00:05:41] burden responsibility, whatever you want to call it, I think you have to give them, if they also live with us
[00:05:49] and are part of our society, try to convey why this time is so extremely important for us.
[00:05:57] And I always say now, as an example of the peoples... so from a different perspective, the genocide of the Armenians,
[00:06:04] we know about it because we learned about it in school or whatever,
[00:06:10] this great historical and traumatic event that still overshadows so much today,
[00:06:17] by its very nature it is not for us Central Europeans.
[00:06:22] Tobias: At the time of the recording, the tender or the creation of the possible new memorial site was underway
[00:06:30] on the site of the former Reichnau labor education camp.
[00:06:35] We were also present this year, where we all drei were also present, at the opening of the time points.
[00:06:41] So we attended the Innsbruck alternative of the Stolpersteine, which was also a very nice event,
[00:06:48] which again shows how important it is to take up topics, to process them and not to talk about, how shall we put it?
[00:06:56] stumble or stumble into it and then create something that is quite fast,
[00:07:03] or on Druck from the outside, what is created.
[00:07:07] And because I have you here, it might not be entirely unwise,
[00:07:12] perhaps a little bit of the political process based on the points in time.
[00:07:18] But let's start like this, if it's planned now, be it Reichenau, be it the points in time,
[00:07:26] be it another memorial, which can happen or be initiated in the future.
[00:07:32] How do you start, how do you get the ball rolling, so to speak, so that politics is also involved?
[00:07:40] Uschi: Well, first of all, the office of councillor and the work of the culture committee are very closely interlinked,
[00:07:50] because the city law of the provincial capital of Innsbruck defines our constitution exactly,
[00:07:56] how the procedures have to be in order to reach a decision.
[00:08:00] And the issue of timing is perhaps a very good one, because it depends on the decision-making situation, so to speak
[00:08:07] and in terms of the implementation situation, it's already a finished project.
[00:08:12] It will never be finished because the citizens are also in demand,
[00:08:17] to pick up on the moments and initiate them themselves, but in terms of political decisions, it's finished.
[00:08:24] And that means in concrete terms, there was a push by some citizens in Innsbruck,
[00:08:32] a very intense demand for so-called stumbling blocks.
[00:08:37] And of course, this topic also reached us in the Culture Committee.
[00:08:42] And we didn't immediately say yes, a good idea, or reject it outright,
[00:08:49] but what we are doing is getting expertise on this issue from historians on the one hand
[00:08:59] and on the other hand from the Jewish community.
[00:09:03] And it turned out in the course of our discussions and after obtaining the expert opinions,
[00:09:09] that we no longer see the model of the stumbling blocks as appropriate.
[00:09:14] Above all, we have always had the uneasy feeling that it is actually not appropriate,
[00:09:20] when you stumble over the victims drÃor climb onto these memorial stones draso to speak.
[00:09:29] And then we decided in the culture committee that we would set up a working group like this
[00:09:34] and actually held a small competition or a call for tenders,
[00:09:39] where we were accompanied by Weissraum [Designforum Tirol for contemporary visual communication and design], who are now also accompanying us on the issue of Reichenau
[00:09:46] and have chosen the present, well-known model from it
[00:09:53] and the steps, so to speak, and Irene please correct me, intervene,
[00:09:58] if I don't remember everything exactly now,
[00:10:01] because I have so many projects in many areas that things often get mixed up,
[00:10:07] but in any case, the culture committee selected what was known from the proposals submitted, so to speak.
[00:10:15] And then, since a city committee is only an advisory body,
[00:10:21] Did I say that wrong?
[00:10:23] Ah, Irene, you say it.
[00:10:25] Irene: The basic idea was, which we have also just discussed with experts,
[00:10:32] personalized individual memorial and remembrance signs
[00:10:39] to victims of National Socialism
[00:10:42] and, if possible, close to or preferably at their last voluntarily chosen place of residence in Innsbruck.
[00:10:50] In other words, if someone lived in the, I say on purpose now, what fantasy name at Erdäpfelstraße 12,
[00:10:59] before he was deported to a concentration camp, for example, and so on,
[00:11:04] should have a personal memorial and remembrance sign either on the house, if possible, or if possible nearby
[00:11:11] be attached to this person.
[00:11:15] It is true that we have spoken out against stumbling blocks.
[00:11:19] Personally, my biggest objection to this is actually the names of the victims
[00:11:25] and thus trampling the victims underfoot, that doesn't seem right to me.
[00:11:30] Then, of course, we discussed this again and again with the Culture Committee
[00:11:37] and then announced a competition and it wasn't the culture committee that chose the result,
[00:11:43] but a jury of experts, of which I was one of the members,
[00:11:47] but historians, historians from the graphic arts sector and so on,
[00:11:54] simply experts from every conceivable sector involved,
[00:12:00] right up to a colleague from the IKB, because it's a good place,
[00:12:11] to put up what we now know is a time is masts.
[00:12:17] And how that works technically, you wouldn't think how difficult it can be [laughs briefly].
[00:12:21] I've learned an incredible amount in the course of this competition and this whole process.
[00:12:26] You need experts to tell you this is possible, this is not possible.
[00:12:30] You have to bend this sleeve, you can attach it this way or that way or not.
[00:12:34] There is an incredible amount of expertise from many different areas drin,
[00:12:38] not only at the obvious historical level, but also down to the technical details.
[00:12:47] What I think is also very important is that we, as those with political responsibility for a certain area,
[00:13:00] in our case, culture, do not believe that we have eaten wisdom with a spoon.
[00:13:05] Of course, there are experts in the city for all areas,
[00:13:11] Thank goodness we are well equipped, also thanks to the fact that we are a university city,
[00:13:17] that we have a, now I have to be a little bit slimy, a super-functioning, well-positioned city archive,
[00:13:25] with great colleagues who are always helpful and say, yes, we have something here,
[00:13:30] or look, you could do that and so on.
[00:13:32] Well, I'm sucking up a bit, but it's ...
[00:13:35] Tobias: On behalf of the city archive, I'm happy to accept that.
[00:13:37] Irene: It's simply the truth.
[00:13:39] Slime is easy when you tell the truth.
[00:13:41] Uschi: Maybe just a quick addendum.
[00:13:43] It was also, for example, just so you can see the dimension, the traffic law was included,
[00:13:48] because, so to speak, signs that are placed on the road must of course not impair the safety of traffic.
[00:13:56] And the road manager from the civil engineering department was also there, because it's not just time markers that are placed on poles,
[00:14:04] but also, where possible and otherwise not possible, on pillars that have to be anchored in the road.
[00:14:10] So, I found it very nice that the project, that the culture of remembrance, so to speak, has also seeped into authorities and technical offices.
[00:14:20] And I think that was also an enrichment for these people.
[00:14:23] Tobias: And I think at this point you could perhaps also thank IKB, who also took care of the maintenance and the ...
[00:14:30] So, as far as I know, even if they are now cleaning and making sure, so to speak, that if there are errors, errors,
[00:14:37] or if something is not right, then you also report it.
[00:14:40] Which is also very, very important, because just because it's hanging in the dran case, it still has to be maintained and cleaned if necessary or something else.
[00:14:50] Let's stay with the dates for a moment, the project has been finalized, so to speak, or at least selected.
[00:14:56] So, in the jury by this jury?
[00:15:00] Irene: Exactly, then it goes to a cultural committee, which is presented there once, because the specialist committees, i.e. the municipal council, the 40-member, elected
[00:15:08] municipal council with various parties and groups, as the population elected us in 2018 in the last election
[00:15:16] put together. So we are responsible for six years for more or less
[00:15:21] everything that happens in the city and that falls within the city's legal area of responsibility
[00:15:28] Innsbruck and the municipal council. Forms specialist committees, in our case culture,
[00:15:34] but of course there are also specialist committees for all other areas, from finance to sport to
[00:15:41] construction to social affairs etc. etc. Everything that the municipal council then has to decide on. The specialist committees
[00:15:50] are, as they are called, active in a preliminary advisory capacity for the municipal council, or under
[00:15:56] circumstances also for the city senate. That's, you can't say government, I've learned,
[00:16:01] because the city of Innsbruck doesn't have a government in that sense, the city of Innsbruck has a
[00:16:05] mayor, a female mayor and then members of the city senate, i.e. city councillors
[00:16:10] Councillors, such as Uschi Schwarzl, who is the city councillor responsible for, among other things
[00:16:15] culture and many other departments. Culture committee discusses, reads under certain circumstances
[00:16:23] again experts to discuss something with them and then makes a recommendation
[00:16:28] recommendation to the city senate or municipal council to decide on topic X in this way.
[00:16:35] Uschi: And whether a recommendation from a committee goes to the city senate or to the municipal council depends
[00:16:44] partly depends on the amounts involved. If the costs are neverdrihigher, the city senate is enough. At
[00:16:52] higher amounts, it also has to go to the municipal council or when it comes to guidelines. That has to
[00:16:57] in any case in the municipal council, so that is precisely regulated in the municipal law, which competence
[00:17:02] which committee has. But the committees themselves only have the right to make proposals and no independent
[00:17:08] right to make decisions. Tobias: Does that basically mean, if I understand it that way, that the Culture Committee,
[00:17:13] now I'll say, if it's not unanimous or if it's not recommended by the culture committee,
[00:17:22] to implement it, but how does it still end up in either a state senate or a local council?
[00:17:27] Uschi: Every decision, whether positive or negative, majority or unanimous, comes into the
[00:17:34] next higher body. And if the culture committee had decided not to take any
[00:17:40] of the projects and not implement anything now, then, so to speak, yes, in the end it would probably have been
[00:17:46] no recommendations would have been made at all, but there are zero decisions or no decisions
[00:17:51] mainly concern subsidies. If you apply to us for a cultural subsidy,
[00:17:55] then I would say, well, what he's doing [Uschi smiles, Tobias laughs] has nothing to do with culture or anything.
[00:18:01] Tobias: The podcast, for example.
[00:18:02] Uschi: There are no subsidies, but your application will still go to the state senate or local council,
[00:18:09] depending on how much you've applied for, but just rejected, but the local council
[00:18:14] or the state senate could still change the decisiondre.
[00:18:18] Irene: Theoretically, so of course they could, but the specialist committees of the local council
[00:18:24] are made up of municipal councillors, depending on the strength of their parliamentary groups in the
[00:18:31] municipal council. This means that if there is a full majority or unanimity in the
[00:18:36] Culture Committee for or against any particular topic or project, this is to be
[00:18:42] it can be assumed that there will be no change between the culture committee and the municipal council meeting two weeks later
[00:18:48] opinions change by 100 percentdreand then suddenly the majority is in favor of
[00:18:52] or against it. So it never actually happens in practice.
[00:18:57] If it's close, then it can, because of course the smaller ones, the one and two people in
[00:19:02] groups are not represented in the committees, only as listeners
[00:19:06] admitted, it could happen that a close result is thendreeither way.
[00:19:13] But I must also emphasize very clearly, because I am very, very pleased that especially
[00:19:18] unanimity or unanimity is actually normal in the culture of remembrance. Uschi: Unanimity actually always.
[00:19:26] Irene: Well, I don't want to say anything wrong, but I can't remember any of the
[00:19:31] projects that we have decided on and implemented or started in the last few years,
[00:19:35] to implement them, that there were any dissenting voices, i.e. from the small, one-person
[00:19:41] groups to the largest groups in the municipal council, regardless of political affiliation,
[00:19:47] there was always unanimity.
[00:19:49] And I think that's very, very important as a signal to the elected representatives
[00:19:56] of the people of Innsbruck are in agreement, arguing about many things.
[00:20:00] And that's a good thing.
[00:20:01] Tobias: That's also right.
[00:20:02] Irene: That's also the way to say it.
[00:20:03] Arguing or discussing controversially is nothing negative.
[00:20:07] I can see that, that's my opinion.
[00:20:09] But on these topics, after long, thorough preparations and discussions, we are on the same page
[00:20:15] of course,
[00:20:16] we are in agreement and also want to send this signal to the people of Innsbruck
[00:20:23] send.
[00:20:24] Uschi: Which wasn't really the case in earlier years and I think it also has something to do with that,
[00:20:29] that an incredibly lively and competent scientific scene has developed in Innsbruck. Irene: Definitely yes!
[00:20:37] Uschi: And we can draw on an extremely high level of expertise and we can also use it
[00:20:45] make very intensive use of it.
[00:20:47] Also thanks to the people, whether at the university or as mediators
[00:20:55] in schools or in the cultural sector.
[00:20:58] It's a wonderful form of collaboration and a great deal of trust has been built up over the years
[00:21:04] I think a great deal of trust has developed over the years, a mutual trust, and that is essential for bringing about the best possible
[00:21:10] broadly supported decisions I think is also very important.
[00:21:13] Irene: I completely share your assessment.
[00:21:16] We can really be extremely happy and grateful for the contemporary historians
[00:21:23] in Innsbruck.
[00:21:24] They are simply top-notch and I don't think I'm saying anything wrong when I say that they have
[00:21:33] in the last few years they've also realized that it makes sense to work with us.
[00:21:40] The fact that we don't just shout about dre, but make a real effort to find solutions
[00:21:44] find solutions, make progress and so on.
[00:21:47] So, no, I'll just say it now, I believe that in this area, we politicians
[00:21:54] have also proven to be reliable partners in recent years.
[00:21:59] They are already serious.
[00:22:00] Who don't just say something pious and unctuous in Sunday speeches, but
[00:22:06] who really want to make a difference.
[00:22:08] And especially in the area of remembrance culture, we've actually seen in these last six years
[00:22:15] made a lot of progress.
[00:22:17] Tobias: Maybe just to conclude, is there anything from your point of view that you would like to pass on?
[00:22:23] want to pass on.
[00:22:24] I think I can say it in that case, you're both leaving now at the next
[00:22:29] municipality or with the next election, from your offices.
[00:22:32] Is there anything you want to pass on to your successors in a political sense?
[00:22:38] or also to the population, where you say it's important to us that it continues to be
[00:22:44] remains so strong, which simply has to be preserved?
[00:22:48] Irene: When it comes to the culture of remembrance, I think it's very important to say that it's a process
[00:22:56] that can never be completed with the finalization of a very specific project
[00:23:02] or with the implementation of a project.
[00:23:05] Because the most important thing about the culture of remembrance for me is to recognize the past for its
[00:23:15] relevance for the present.
[00:23:18] So to say, what does that have to do with me?
[00:23:20] What does that have to do with my time?
[00:23:23] What does that have to do with what we do in the future?
[00:23:27] How do we want to live together in the future?
[00:23:29] How we raise our children, what we give them and so on and so forth.
[00:23:36] And that's why we've managed to implement a lot of things in the last few years, or at least
[00:23:42] on the way and I'm happy about that, but I think that also has to be
[00:23:47] next municipal council must be aware of that, that's not the end of it.
[00:23:51] And then we say, okay, thank God, we've chopped that off now, that's it [laughs].
[00:23:55] Can't be right, can't be right.
[00:23:58] Even if the time distance increases, it doesn't change the importance of the topics.
[00:24:06] And overall, I believe that the next municipal council should not underestimate that art
[00:24:18] and culture are simply a foodstuff.
[00:24:22] Mag be that someone rarely goes to the theater or hardly ever to concerts of any kind
[00:24:29] or that they say they get cramps at art openings Mage.
[00:24:34] It's all right, it's all right.
[00:24:36] Tobias: Definitely, yes.
[00:24:37] Nobody has to stand around at a vernissage and talk about a painting in a clever and educated way
[00:24:44] be able to talk about it.
[00:24:46] But culture and art are the fuel in our tank.
[00:24:55] I don't want to start a mobility debate now with the mobility city councillor
[00:25:01] Uschi Schwarzl.
[00:25:02] But the next municipal council should also be aware of this, and not just as a Sunday speech,
[00:25:12] because otherwise Innsbruck would no longer be Innsbruck and would be so much poorer than it is now
[00:25:20] is now.
[00:25:21] Uschi: Maybe I can start right away, because I... with culture in general
[00:25:26] my heart opens.
[00:25:28] Because you look a little bit outside the box and you don't have to go that far
[00:25:33] drive that far.
[00:25:34] Innsbruck is actually a small city, a medium-sized city and for its size it has
[00:25:44] cultural life, both in terms of its size and its population,
[00:25:49] that is actually sensational.
[00:25:51] Irene: I can only... I can only underline that! It really is like that.
[00:25:52] Uschi: In terms of variety, in terms of quantity and quality.
[00:25:58] And that's a treasure that needs to be cherished and that actually makes Innsbruck what it is.
[00:26:06] Innsbruck with only mountains and skiing would be poor.
[00:26:10] Innsbruck with these opportunities to go on a quick ski tour after work and
[00:26:16] and then go to a theater, it's incredible, it's unique.
[00:26:21] And I'm really out and about a lot at various events and it's becoming
[00:26:27] a lot of things are happening at the same time, but everything is always extremely well attended.
[00:26:32] And it would be fatal if a new municipal council wasn't aware of that.
[00:26:41] Point two on the culture of remembrance, I would like to say two things, a general one.
[00:26:47] I believe, as we have both already emphasized, that we have embarked on a very good, new path in the culture of remembrance since 2018.
[00:27:01] And it would be important and nice if the municipal council would continue on this path.
[00:27:07] And it's also very specifically about projects that have arisen from our work,
[00:27:14] to continue in a very concrete way.
[00:27:16] We will not have implemented the worthy commemoration of the Reichenau labor education camp until the municipal council,
[00:27:26] until the municipal elections.
[00:27:28] That means it will be up to the next municipal council to implement the final outcome of the competition.
[00:27:38] A new municipal council will implement the commemorative potential that we have just mentioned today,
[00:27:44] which have also emerged during this time and which are exactly where every year
[00:27:54] new forms of commemoration of the liberation of Mauthausen are possible and are implemented in accordance with the times.
[00:28:05] We also supported the research project on the Wehrmacht deserters.
[00:28:11] There will also be a personalized, but also localized commemoration based on these research results.
[00:28:25] Irene: Sorry, Uschi, if I'm sneaking in, the history of deserters, Wehrmacht deserters, was also very important to me.
[00:28:31] Unfortunately, we didn't get that any further..., we just didn't get that together.
[00:28:38] Uschi: Yes, because I think that's also...
[00:28:40] Irene: But it would be very important to me that something happens in the next few years.
[00:28:46] Uschi: But I think it's also a form of seriousness if you really work through the things, the projects bit by bit and don't do everything at the same time in a hysterical way, so to speak,
[00:28:58] because then the quality suffers.
[00:29:02] But we have, so to speak, set things in motion in terms of implementation and we have laid the foundations for future implementation and it is up to the next municipal council to make something of it.
[00:29:15] And I'm convinced that, regardless of the outcome of the election, what we've laid the foundations for won't be so easy to overturn.
[00:29:27] Tobias: I think that sums it up quite well on the subject of the culture of remembrance.
[00:29:31] It just has to be well thought out, it can't be a quick-fire decision.
[00:29:37] It needs committees behind it, it needs experts behind it who advise.
[00:29:42] And together, mostly, so far we've managed to get great projects off the ground thanks to your help.
[00:29:50] And you just have to say that loud and clear.
[00:29:52] [Outro music]
[00:30:08] Tobias: Archivwürrdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.
Transcription
Tobias: Hello and welcome to the seventh episode of our third season of Archivwürdig, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archives. In the two previous episodes, we already mentioned the "Zeitpunkte Innsbruck". The "Zeitpunkte" are Innsbruck's interpretation of the stumbling stones laid in many cities to commemorate people who were murdered during the Nazi regime. In this episode, we would like to present a summary of the official opening event of "Zeitpunkte", which took place on January 27, 2024. The event was opened by our Head of Cultural Affairs Isabelle Brandauer, who will also welcome you to our episode. #00:00:44-0#
[Intro music]
Isabelle: #00:00:59-7# (...) Ladies and gentlemen, I think there is hardly a better place in Innsbruck than the premises of the City Library to begin this ceremony with a quote from the great Austrian writer, pacifist and Jew Stefan Zweig. [Beginning quote] "On the day I lost my passport, I discovered at the age of 58 that you lose more with your homeland than a patch of enclosed earth" [end quote]. Zweig escaped the National Socialist terror by emigrating to London and later Brazil. His books were included on the list of book burnings. in 1942, Zweig and his wife Lotte took their own lives in Brazil. Zweig lived in Salzburg from 1919 until he fled to England. There is a stumbling block at his former place of residence. From August 2020 at the latest, the laying of Stumbling Stones in Innsbruck was also the subject of heated debate. Innsbruck decided to go its own way and set up a working group via the Culture Committee. Today, we are proud to present the result of these months of work. #00:02:25-1#
Tobias: #00:02:27-2# The mayor in office at the time of the recording, Georg Willi, had the following to say at the opening of these memorials. #00:02:34-3#
Willi: #00:02:35-1# We have come together to commemorate and remember the victims of National Socialism. We laid a wreath together earlier. But we have also come together to present how we want to live and experience a contemporary culture of remembrance in Innsbruck in the future. We want to remember. Our responsibility for the past, for the present and for the future. It is important to remember not only the atrocities, but also the people. Not only of their deaths, but also of their lives. Not as numbers, but with a name, an address, an identity, their history. I ended my words today at the wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial to the Reichenau labor education camp with these sentences. I wanted to begin my words of greeting here again with these words. We want to remember. Aware of our responsibility for the past, for the present and for the future. Remembering is deeply human. Memory, whether individual or collective, is always part of and a prerequisite for learning. The theoretical and practical knowledge accumulated in our memory helps us in everyday life and helps us in crises. We can recognize risks as such more quickly and prevent them. We can adapt our behavior and thus ourselves. We can even learn to remember better. We want to remember and must do so in a timely manner. This also means doing justice to the victims in particular, giving them back, at least symbolically, what was irretrievably taken from them under National Socialist rule. That is why we want to remember them not primarily as victims, but as human beings. I would like to repeat not only their deaths, but also their lives. Not as numbers. But with a name. With an address. With an identity. With history. And not separated in a museum, in an archive, shunted off to the edge of the city. Not limited to individual days of remembrance, but everyday and in the middle of the city. This is the idea behind the "Zeitpunkte" project: not only to make victims of National Socialism visible, but to create space for them in our city and thus enable interpersonal encounters at eye level across time and space. #00:05:49-7#
Tobias: #00:05:50-5# Afterwards, Stefan Amann from Proxydesign spoke about the concept of "Zeitpunkte" and Niko Hofinger from the Innsbruck City Archive about the concrete implementation of "Zeitpunkte". #00:06:01-4#
Stefan: #00:06:03-0# Yes, it's a great pleasure and a great honor to be here, together with Niko Hofinger on stage, and to introduce them to the "Zeitpunkte". Initially only on a conceptual level. We will then examine the originals together. The project group had laid the foundation, this decentralized commemoration that leads into the... into the urban space. And there you can already see that the "points in time" are actual points. Points in the city, but also points in history. And above all, they are points in... not only in history, but also points in the lives of the people who are primarily affected, namely the victims. And that's the core, so to speak. The important thing with the dates was not to summarize them per address, so to speak. Instead, we really wanted to commemorate each person individually. Out of respect for the individual person, but also to make visible the scale, the number of victims affected. And this individual commemoration and this point in people's lives has resulted in a very strong reduction of information, which focuses on people's lives. The mayor has already mentioned it, not only on death, but above all on people's lives, because they were Innsbruck residents who spent large parts or all of their lives here, who were part of a community. And we then radically shortened this information and with this empathic for oversight. And you can already tell from the text that someone is commemorating another person and, in my eyes, that's all it takes at first to feel that someone is commemorating someone else. Everything else, all the data, the biography, the context, you can call that up later. That's what digital media is for. They are wonderful, they are available everywhere. And the second thing is the formal value of form that was mentioned. Yes, and these "points in time" have become actual points. Short jumps, which are located in the urban space, are said to be about the size of the palm of your hand and they actually go - and this is also important to me - they are not industrial products, so to speak, but actually go through many hands. So even when you see them, they are basically very similar, but each one is a little bit different. That's down to the manufacturing process. I modeled the original form. Wolfgang Christmann casts them in bronze, Roland Atlassic polishes them, Angelika Hölzl engraves the names, Silli Baumann seals them and Matthias Praxmarer assembles them. And you can see that it goes through many hands. And that's more or less the beginning of remembering. And I believe that it is precisely this passing through many hands that results from the work of many hands and that the work that is done beforehand is not even taken into account in the research. I'm only speaking for my own modest part, so to speak. Exactly. I've just said it. You will find them digitally. Of course you can meet them, they change. As life changes, so do the "times", depending on the weather and the angle. And from whichever street corner I come from, they are sometimes quite inconspicuous. And sometimes, when the sun shines on them, they light up. And I think they enrich the cityscape in Innsbruck and are a beautiful and contemporary form that hopefully corresponds to the project group and what they wanted. #00:10:15-8#
Niko: #00:10:16-6# Thank you very much, Stefan. I can't even remember the day after school when our city archives director Lukas came in and said "We've found the ideal project". And to this day, I still think it was the ideal project. We started with all kinds of wishes, but you can never formulate them as precisely as a creative person who comes from a creative background can. And I personally am a big fan of reduction and there really is no better reduction than this for these "points in time". It works. And yes, thank you very much for this, for this great design and for all the support up to and including the website, which is online today. Of course, the website needs to be a strong companion and it also needs a group of people who feel responsible for the content. Under no circumstances should I forget to thank Horst Schreiber, who solved the difficult task for us of opening up the entire fan with the first group of possible biographies. Today, January 27th, Auschwitz Liberation Day. But these "points in time" cover a much wider variety of people. We have resistance fighters, deserters, a Jehovah's Witness, very different people who were killed by the National Socialists for a wide variety of reasons. And we have also included a Jewish family, simply because it fits in very well with today's date. Horst Schreiber first broke down the biographies, researched them and wrote them. And I think this work deserves a round of applause! Thank you, Horst [applause can be heard].
What happens next from our point of view? We hope it has already been mentioned twice. But I'll say it again: we really hope that people will say "Yes, that's exactly what I want in front of my house". And the stories continue. Last week we found a new Jewish victim of death from Innsbruck. New biographies are being told. We have a restriction that is once again very different from the Stumbling Stones. I would also like to say that at this point. We have oriented ourselves on the fact that there have been similar projects in many German cities, especially Bavarian cities. And in the end, it's always really about "wording" and the exact definition. And we said we would restrict it to people who died under National Socialism. That is a clear restriction. So that doesn't mean someone who had to flee for various reasons of racial persecution, for political reasons, not someone whose husband had to flee. So that, the very clear restriction to fatalities, clearly defines that. We stuck to an Augsburg definition that we actually liked very much in the group and where we said, well, that breaks it down, where remembering also makes sense as a city and as a city archive. #00:13:54-7#
Tobias: #00:13:56-0# Finally, I'll share with you an excerpt from the background discussion that took place in the city library after the opening ceremony. It will give you an insight into how this design competition came about in the first place.
Kurt Höretzeder: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, have a nice afternoon. This is now a so-called background discussion. #00:14:17-3#
#00:14:17-6# Funny, we're sitting on the stage without a background. [Quiet murmuring can be heard from the background]
It was a very, I would say, appropriate and dignified... event in the morning.
[Something has fallen over in the background]
But the fact that these stumbling blocks are now being unveiled in Innsbruck is the conclusion of a project lasting several years, and everything has already been said about it this morning. We would now like to give a few more insights into how the design competition came about. And that also explains why I'm sitting on the stage now, representing the WEI SRAUM [read: Weissraum], the design forum. We were commissioned by the city archive to accompany the design competition. And we do that regularly. Usually for topics that are either very complex, which was also the case here. Above all for public clients, which is of course very pleasing for us, because a certain role model effect from the public side is something that is of course very pleasing for every designer, especially in the field of design. And as WEI SRAUM, we have at least been able to contribute to a certain extent to the fact that this is gradually becoming common practice in Innsbruck, that when there are ambitious projects, we can support them. The memorial sign in Innsbruck, which was the working title and is now called "Zeitpunkte", was one such project and there is currently also a design competition that we are supporting, namely where the wreath-laying ceremony took place today in Reichenau, not far from where the current memorial stone stands, in the direction of the Inn, along the green corridor, there will hopefully be a memorial in a few years' time. That is actually the next step in this issue of the culture of remembrance in Innsbruck. We are also currently working on this. And we have already learned a great deal from the competition, and I would like to say very briefly that unfortunately it was all gentlemen. It wasn't intentional, it just turned out that way over time. But I would like to introduce it very briefly for those of you who do not yet know my interlocutors here so well. To my right, Stefan Amann works as a designer, is an interdisciplinary office, both in terms of access and geographically in Berlin, then in Hohenems and in Spain... Amann: Barcelona. Person? Barcelona! We've known each other for a long time. There was a competition six or seven years ago, which Proxy also won for Verkehrsverbund Tirol, a completely different area at the time. And Stefan and his office with his partners also have a very... I would say good name in his field in Austria. He is usually a very focused designer who... finds solutions that really get to the point. That was also one of the main reasons why you ultimately won the competition. To my left, Kurt Dornig. [Clears his throat]. Not Dörnig or Döring, as was written at the top of the slide today, but Kurt Dornig from Vorarlberg, Dornbirn. Why is Kurt there? On the one hand, because he is known as a graphic designer and illustrator, especially in the field of book design or corporate design. Perhaps everyone in Austria is familiar with the Biber catalogs, which are also managed by Kurt. So he's also one of the good designers who are not so rare in Vorarlberg; Vorarlberg has a relatively high and good [someone laughs in the background] density of designers. And Kurt Dornig was a jury chairman for the competition. And then Niko Hofinger. I read, Niko, that you are the house historian of the Jewish Community. I read that on Wallenstein Verlag, in your bio. But Niko, we've known each other for a long time. Incidentally, he also works in the field of, how shall we say, multimedia design. Many projects, including in the exhibition context, which you accompany, but of course he is also known as a historian in Innsbruck and also works in the city archive. Annika was also responsible for the technical implementation of the website for this project. For now the "points in time". And that's the reason why the four of us are sitting up here now. I would like to start with you, Kurt, describing how the competition went from your perspective as jury chairman. That's what we wanted in terms of content. At least one of the focal points. There are... well, there are words like "Never again", for example, that are said like that, and you hear them very often again right now, for understandable reasons. Nevertheless, language sometimes needs forms, manifestations. And this project of memorial signs, the original working title, was also an example of this. People like to say that words are smoke and mirrors. [Clears throat] Incidentally, the original quote is actually "Names are smoke and mirrors" from Goethe's Faust, for those who still know it somehow. And in this case it is quite literally so, so that such words or names are not so easily reduced to smoke and mirrors, in this case sadly also often to be understood proverbially, it is sometimes necessary to think about how to give such topics a form And that's what the design competition was for. Kurt, can you briefly describe from your perspective as chairman of the jury how the competition went? #00:20:15-9#
Kurt Dornig: #00:20:17-8# Yes. Thank you for the invitation. First of all, I would like to thank WEI SRAUM. As a partner for the organizer, the city of Innsbruck, and also on the other side for the creative people who... It's anything but a matter of course to have such a competent partner in the middle. And that's always a stroke of luck for both sides. Anyone who has ever taken part in a competition where there was simply an open call for entries and then everyone got involved knows what I'm talking about when everyone has to start working straight away before it's even clear what the framework conditions will be, etc. And that's where WEI SRA comes in. And the WEI SRAUM really is a role model in this respect. Something that we would also like to have in Vorarlberg in this form, where everything is taken care of very, very competently, everything is very transparent and the right creative agencies and design offices are invited accordingly. And that brings me to the topic you mentioned. The process was actually that you first put it out to tender openly. And with a very, very comprehensive and clear briefing. And the - I can't remember exactly - 20 or 25 creative offices that responded to this call for tenders were then reduced to six offices in an initial review with a points system, which then received a clear, invited competition brief. This was also linked to a detailed briefing. And in the jury, i.e. in this first round of judging, it was of course also very important to us that we included as wide a range of different design personalities as possible. In other words, young, old, different areas, different focuses, different life experiences. In other words, we wanted to be able to expect suggestions for solutions from as many directions as possible. And... In the presentation itself, it was really... Actually, this hope was also fulfilled to a certain extent. Basically, it has to be said that all six of the invited agencies and design offices have dealt extremely intensively with the topic, with the very sensitive topic [A door in the background closes], have informed themselves and in some cases have really come up with very different solutions. And... #00:23:31-0#
Kurt Dornig: #00:23:33-2# The... #00:23:33-5# [Long pause]
Kurt Dornig: #00:23:35-4# Whereby five of these six agencies... [Pause] Have found or sought a solution, an approach to a solution, by using all the information and we have already heard one of these biographies in great detail today. So of course you could present and write it in an even more reduced way, but they tried to put all this information on the spot. And during the presentations, it actually became quite clear that this would take up an extremely large amount of space, that some very large structures would have had to be built here in order to implement this, which of course involves a great deal of effort and expense, but also a great deal of maintenance. And also, unfortunately, it has to be said that vandalism is becoming more and more of an issue these days. And the solution from Proxy [pause]. It was actually convincing from... from the very first moment, because they didn't go down this route, because they were very reduced and yes, literally to the point... This memorial sign with incredible aesthetics and... and great empathy. Placed so naturally in the space that it is at eye level, which is also the difference to the memorial stones that are embedded in the ground and the stumbling blocks that are embedded in the ground, which are walked on, which are also exposed to the weather and do not fall into the face at eye level and and and and... They also form a striking part of the cityscape and street furniture. And today you have good opportunities with QR codes and websites etc. to place this background information in a very detailed form in another medium. And you were actually the only ones who came up with this solution, which I don't want to say is very obvious, but simply came up with it. And it was immediately convincing because it simply had the same aesthetic quality that we had seen in the presentation before. Funnily enough, if I may interject, I was immediately approached by a young woman, probably a student here in Innsbruck, who immediately asked me what, what, what was being unveiled here. It looks so beautiful and she immediately asked about the background information. And she was extremely impressed by what she saw. And he did. And I think we'll have this experience more often. #00:26:32-4#
Kurt Höretzeder: #00:26:34-8# Maybe you can add that it was also a unanimous jury decision. #00:26:38-4#
Kurt Höretzeder: #00:26:39-7# [clears throat] There are other competitions where you often have the good fortune that perhaps two almost equal, often very different approaches are chosen as winners. In this case, it was very clear. So it was actually clear to the entire jury that this was the winning project. I would also like to add very briefly. Larger design competitions are usually carried out anonymously. This means that the jury doesn't even know who the entrant is during the jury meeting. In this competition, it was definitely [clears throat] decided differently. That means there was a personal presentation of the various participants, invited participants and... #00:27:20-2#
#00:27:21-5# That, in turn, has the reason #00:27:22-5#
#00:27:22-5# in the fact that with such a sensitive topic. Then you have to somehow get a picture of the people behind it. And so they decided on this personal presentation. #00:27:34-6#
[Outro music]
Tobias: #00:27:53-0# (...) Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. #00:28:00-2#
Transcription
Tobias: Hello and welcome to the eighth and final episode of our third season of Archivwürdig, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archives. In today's episode, we would like to talk about the new memorial to the former Reichenau labor education camp. For this reason, I sat down with four members of the working group Pawlik, Denzer, Machat, Schlorhaufer, Ziegner to talk about their chosen winning project. Among other things, we talk about the genesis of the idea, its further development and also try to present the most important elements of the memorial site. [Intro music]
Tobias: In today's episode, we talk about the Reichenau memorial site project. You were chosen as the winning project in an international competition. We are currently in the process of implementing this project. And I think it's good for our listeners to hear about the project in general, but also, of course, how it came about. And to do this, I would perhaps like to start by having the people who were involved in the project introduce themselves. And I would say it's best to start with Ricarda and then move on to Hermann. Ricarda, if I could ask you to say a few words about yourself. #00:01:36-3#
Ricarda: #00:01:38-7# Yes, my name is Ricarda Denzer. I came to the project as a visual artist, as part of it or involved in it. I went to school in Tyrol, had a brief excursion into architecture in Innsbruck, then began my studies in Vienna at the Angewandte, studied conceptual art and worked as a freelancer for over 20 years and now also have a teaching position as a senior lecturer at the Angewandte, where I spent five years as head of transdisciplinary art, the Trans Arts Co. and I am still working there as a senior lecturer, have done a whole series of projects in public space, site-specific projects, have a strong connection to spoken language, oral history, working with audiovisual media as well as installative settings and site-specific works. The question of memory and the culture of remembrance runs through all my work to this day. #00:02:39-5#
Tobias: #00:02:39-9# Thank you very much, Hermann, if I can go on to you... Hermann: Yes. Tobias: May I give. #00:02:43-7#
Hermann: #00:02:43-7# My name is Hermann Ziegner. I was born in Innsbruck, studied architecture here in Innsbruck and then finished my studies in New York. I've been living in New York for 25 years now and have a small agency for data visualization and information aesthetics. Yes, and in the project I was mainly responsible for the website and the graphic concept and of course the entire concept. #00:03:13-1#
Tobias: #00:03:13-6# Then I'd like to introduce a person I haven't mentioned yet. And may I ask Heinz, if you introduce Bettina in your absence. Heinz: With pleasure. #00:03:24-4#
Heinz: #00:03:24-4# My name is Bettina Schlorhaufer [everyone laughs]. I'm an art historian and head of two institutes at the Faculty of Architecture in Innsbruck. She works at the Institute for Architectural History and the Institute for Architectural Theory. We have a long-standing friendship with Bettina Schlorhaufer, and we asked her to join the project because she has great expertise in all things to do with contemporary history, especially the history of architecture in contemporary history and research into the 20th century in Tyrol and South Tyrol. Bettina is also an excellent writer, which is why, in addition to the precise and accurate research of images and graphic material as a basis for the competition, she also prepared texts for us, conducted text and source research and took on the content review of our project. #00:04:27-6#
Tobias: #00:04:28-0# Then I can hand over to Heike, who briefly introduces herself. #00:04:31-4#
Heike: #00:04:31-8# Thank you very much. Yes, my name is Heike Pawlik. I'm an architect in Innsbruck. I also studied architecture in Innsbruck. In addition to my office work, I also work at the university, at the Institute for Experimental Architecture, Building Construction, and before I worked there, and before I had my own architectural office, I ran an agency, an office for web design and media design, together with Heinz Machat. #00:05:10-4#
Tobias: #00:05:10-9# Last but not least, I'd like to ask Heinz to introduce himself. #00:05:15-6#
Heinz: #00:05:15-9# My name is Karl Heinz Machat. Like Hermann and Heike, I studied architecture in Innsbruck, with a period of study in the USA, in Los Angeles. In addition to architecture and furniture design, Heike and I also worked on e-learning projects and knowledge management in our office and have recently become more and more involved in architecture and art projects alongside our teaching activities at the university. #00:05:45-9#
Tobias: #00:05:46-4# Now there has been this call for proposals or the international call to participate in the project for a new memorial site or for a memorial site in Reichenau. How did you come together as a group in this constellation, so to speak? Did the ball start rolling with one person? And is that the good old snowball effect? And...#00:06:08-3#
Heike: #00:06:08-3# Hermann should answer that. Hermann: There was... #00:06:11-5#
Hermann: #00:06:11-5# ...there was a funny detour somehow via New York. I got an email from an architect friend of mine and he drew my attention to this competition and we had actually already considered doing it together and then I looked into the matter and then this collaboration didn't take place after all. But then I... was already so involved in the subject matter that I spontaneously sent these documents to Heinz, who I know from my student days, and said "You're interested in this, should we take part?" Heinz: And the short answer was yes, immediately. [Laughter] We, we'll apply. I forwarded the question to Heike. #00:06:54-8#
Heike: #00:06:56-3# And the answer was clearly yes, immediately. And I passed the question on to Ricarda. [Laughs] #00:07:01-4#
Tobias: #00:07:02-0# And that's how the whole thing got going. Hermann: [laughing] That was a domino effect. #00:07:05-0#
Tobias: #00:07:05-1# Can you confirm that Ricarda? #00:07:06-0#
Ricarda: #00:07:06-1# I can absolutely confirm that. Exactly. #00:07:08-7#
[Tobias: #00:07:13-1# Where is the first point that you might approach a project like this? Do you think about the architectural aspects first? Or is it difficult to get to grips with anything at all? #00:07:25-9#
Hermann: #00:07:26-9# Maybe I can say something very briefly. We met for the first time in January, on January 2nd at Bettina's institute. And it was actually clear to us relatively quickly that we were going to approach this in a very non-hierarchical way. Although there were these areas, i.e. web design, the didactic concept of architecture, the artistic intervention. But between the five of us, it was actually clear from the start that we would approach everything as a group and flatten out these areas of responsibility in that sense. And let's say we now take it as an overall project in terms of content and concept. Heinz: So perhaps a quick comment: the preparations for this joint collaboration took place in the time before Christmas and perhaps the first thing you do is start to look into it in more detail, because you know something about the topic from hearsay and you've heard something at some point and perhaps informed yourself about it with more or less interest, but you don't actually tackle the books and publications that are available on the subject until you really have to. And it was a pretty tough time, I have to say. So to actually see how many people and under what circumstances they were held prisoner in Innsbruck, in Reichenau, that was quite impressive. We came into this time of cooperation with a primer, so to speak. #00:09:01-6#
Heike: #00:09:02-1# Into this physical collaboration, you have to say. That was the first time the five of us really met together on site. And in the preparatory phase, of course, we also looked at the property that was available to us. It's a very... we'll certainly go into it later, a somewhat extreme piece of land that we first had to get to know, so to speak, and get to grips with. And at the same time, there was also a theoretical examination of the culture of remembrance. Ricarda might have something to say about that. #00:09:37-0#
Ricarda: #00:09:37-0# For me, it's somehow important to simply start from the place that is intended for the memorial. Simply to see what you find there? What characterizes this place? And it's a place with different speeds. The cyclists, the pedestrians. And then it's a transit area. It's a place that is open on both sides. And it's a riverside promenade. In other words, our memorial site stretches along the Inn. And I think that also characterizes in a very special way that the approach or the decisions we made there for the project. #00:10:20-1#
[Tobias: #00:10:24-3# Then I would say that we really talk about the concrete or more concrete process that took place for you. We have it in the introduction or in the performances. Yes, Herrmann mentioned it. You're a bit spread out, not all of you are always in Innsbruck. It's probably not always so easy logistically to sit down together and continue working on the overall concept, of course. How and building on that, so to speak, what does it really look like in practice? Hermann: That's a good question. #00:10:55-7#
Hermann: #00:10:55-8# Well, the... this... this first meeting back in January was of course very intensive, it lasted a week, we met more or less all day every day and we debated a lot and because of that, of course, it was such an emotional topic, it was also very difficult. But in the end, the aim of this week was for us to clarify the topics that we wanted to address with this project. And after a week, we ended up with a large board in the institute with keywords and ideas that we then tried to incorporate in a variety of ways in the approach to a project that was architectural or graphic or artistic and one of these keywords was this idea of the. Of the fragment, of the fragment of memory. Yes, because relatively little is known in terms of actual information. We don't know the names of all the forced laborers and we only know 117 names of the people who died there. And otherwise there are just fragments, fragments of memory that are still there in the population and in my family, for example. So my mother can still remember the camp, but as a small child, how the camp was the denazification camp again. And my father can remember my grandfather, who also worked with the forced laborers in the roofing workshop. #00:12:35-7#
Heike: #00:12:36-0# Yes, I think I'd like to follow on from what Hermann said, because this week of working together and marking out the area, that's how it often is with competitions, then at the end you feel completely exhausted and actually have very little there, very little concrete. So somehow it has to continue to work in you and you think about it and then you try to find correspondences for these ideas and themes and get closer to them so that these themes become concrete and manifest themselves in a physical realization. And that was the work that we approached from different directions, so to speak. The first thing that manifested itself was the graphic idea of a treatment of the surface with a kind of pattern, I'll just call it that, and then the treatment of the terrain developed out of that, which or that complemented each other. [longer pause] Which the... Tobias: You're welcome to join in Heinz. Heike: Yes, exactly. Please Heinz, then... [laughs] #00:14:01-4#
Tobias: #00:14:01-9# You don't have to, #00:14:02-4#
Tobias: #00:14:02-4# but you're welcome to interject. #00:14:03-8# [Heike laughs in the background]
Heinz: #00:14:04-7# So I'd like to interject and pass this on to Ricarda, because I think at the beginning there really was the question of the representation of these victims. It was about. It was about the people and actually this pattern, the graphic pattern that emerged, had to do with the fact that we actually want to refer to over 8,000 people with what is supposed to be there. And that was actually, I think, the starting point in the preparation. #00:14:28-8#
Ricarda: #00:14:30-3# Maybe I can add something to that. The pattern naturally reinforces a movement that runs the entire length of the place. And this movement arises from the idea that something becomes visible, in the sense that something appears that perhaps cannot be named at first. And we have found an analogy there, simply looking at the Inn and the flowing, the flowing river. If you look from one bank to the other, if there is a current or a deviation in the flow within this surface, then you can assume that something is taking effect from below, that there is some kind of resistance or something is somehow disrupting this usual flow. Yes, it leaves a trace. And from this thinking in traces of this drawing and so on, this pattern also reinforces this surface of this landscape, where something becomes visible. It's like a basic narrative, or how do you see it? #00:15:35-7#
Heinz: #00:15:36-3# Yes, I would go even further Ric [short form for Ricarda], that this pressure that comes from below, where you what, where that, what gets stuck and brings things to the top, that this pattern was already well suited to represent or point out these many thousands of people. But of those we knew more about, I think we then decided relatively quickly that we wanted to show more. And that's when we came up with the idea of this drill core, where we actually get something out of this underground. And this underground actually gives us this representation and it also gets this name from this person. #00:16:20-5#
Ricarda: #00:16:20-9# The nice thing is that different ideas play a role here, they go hand in hand, because of course we're also talking about the question "What do we find?" Of course also from the archaeological finds, which are there as concrete material, and the question of probing, i.e. this going into depth and seeing what historical fragments can actually be found there and this fragmentary nature, this finding from the depths, i.e. this, which of course can also be described as sounding, i.e. listening in depth [laughs] or and then working with these fragments. And then we have this fragment of memory that Mr. Herrmann mentioned, but also the saying. Of course, it's one thing to get something out of the ground and to make it visible like a drill core. Yes, somehow we can't think of the right words or something, but we work with what's there. #00:17:15-5#
Hermann: #00:17:15-6# That's the interesting thing about the sounding, that it's also incomplete, or it's just a sample, a part of the whole. And that's how we saw it throughout the whole project, isn't it? And at the same time, we also did our own probing and started talking to the people we knew and doing this memory probing. In other words, to find these fragments and it very quickly became clear to us that a large part of the population still has memories of the camp and of that time and then, of course, what also comes out very clearly in this historical text by Dr. Pitscheider is how involved the city was with this camp and it is basically a history of the city. Of course, it is also the story of the people who were killed there, but for the most part, and I think that was a defining element of our project, it is a story of the city. And this uncovering, this probing of these fragments actually became the program. #00:18:23-2#
Tobias:#00:18:24-2# You have to say that this part of the city's history has been dormant for a very long time. So the depths have been dormant for a very long time. That was known on the surface. It was the subsequent use Hermann: Yes. Tobias: Which we've already talked about, it was there. These are people who lived in there and then it was gone and then there was always so little talk about it. Hermann: Yes. #00:18:43-4#
Hermann: #00:18:43-7# But if you talk to the people now, they still remember. It was mainly Heike and Ricarda who started conducting interviews. Maybe you'll say something about that. #00:18:56-1#
Heike: #00:18:56-1# Yes, I'd love to. Then we did. We had the good fortune... We... Well, I wanted to mention this very briefly beforehand to explain it: The program of this competition was not just the memorial site, the design of the memorial site on site. It also included several other points. It was about imparting knowledge, it was about a didactic concept. It was about creating an online representation and an archive. That was what we added to it, so to speak. And we were lucky enough to be able to ask Dr. Rauchegger-Fischer for the didactic concept to complement our team, so to speak. And she in turn put us in touch with two descendants of a former camp inmate who agreed to conduct interviews with us and thus hopefully open up a series of interviews with contemporary witnesses, secondary contemporary witnesses, which we would also like to collect as documentation material for this website. #00:20:09-3#
Ricarda: #00:20:10-7# Which shows once again that the project and the work on the project was transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary right from the start. In other words, everything that has been created has been created in relation to each other and is related to the respective fields and considerations and to the respective knowledge, and I think that makes it somehow very special. Of course, this also makes it partly intuitive, fragile and ambivalent. But it is something that is in motion. And that's really important to us as a basic prerequisite for a question like "What should this place be able to do?" Yes, the place itself also has something of a passage, but it's this movement, so to speak, that you don't simply conquer and master or systematize something, but that you say that what we want to tell there is also the way we work or we work, we try to work in a way that is somehow an important narrative for us there or a procedure. #00:21:13-8#
[Tobias: #00:21:18-5# But I would say we're already taking this step further towards the way the project is now. I don't know how best to do it. We'll just talk about the individual elements and then everyone can just add to it. Let's perhaps start again with the location, so that we pick up all the people again. In other words, we have on this green strip, which is now roughly from [longer pause] yes... #00:21:42-3#
Heike: #00:21:42-8# May I? I'd like to describe it, I'd like to describe it, because I wrote down the data. Tobias: Yes, very nice. [both laugh] Heike: So it's, it's about the green strip. Ricarda had already described it very well between the footpath and cycle path on the banks of the Inn outside the Grenoble Bridge towards the quarry pond, which is probably a household name for Innsbruck residents, and the competition area we were given is around 260 meters long and between six and 14 meters wide. So it's like this, it gets narrower and wider again and has a belly in between and is a green strip that is loosely planted with trees. And on this strip we were allowed to choose where and how we wanted to play. And we quickly decided that we wanted to use the whole field for it. #00:22:41-6#
Tobias: #00:22:42-3# May I... I'm now playing the ignorant person who knows, but uses how? #00:22:46-5# [both laugh]
Hermann: #00:22:48-0# Yes, as we've already mentioned a few times, this is actually a landscape, and that is that there was this play on words between walking and thinking, that is, the commemoration, this, this moving along from this wave, from this, from this landscape and there over these floor slabs, these, these fragments, to get a sense of how many fates were affected there. And then, of course, to see these name stones. These 114, um, 117 memorial stones, where the names are explicitly mentioned again. That's also very important to us. #00:23:27-9#
Tobias: #00:23:28-6# I'm thinking of the, well, the paving is also on the estimated 8/2 8000 people who came through this camp, so to speak, and the 114 name stones, the memorial stones, we should also go into that a bit separately... Hermann: Yes. Tobias: Simply to recognize, to describe that. So for those who [unintelligible] hear and don't see, in that case, perhaps, Heinz, if you don't mind, you can also briefly explain the thoughts behind these stones. Heinz: The stones #00:23:58-2#
Heinz: #00:23:58-2# They are part of this carpet of fragments. So every single person is a fragment. #00:24:05-3#
Heinz: #00:24:05-6# But that's us, because we know more #00:24:07-7# about these people
Heinz: #00:24:07-7# because they died violently in the camp or died of illness or were executed, we know from the death certificate who they were, where they came from and that's why we were able to identify them more closely. And just like a drill core, the name stone takes the subsoil up with it and confronts us. And we have decided to provide a slight incline on this upper surface, on which the name is then placed so that it confronts us. And perhaps, when the weather is nice, when the sun is right, this smooth surface will reflect a part of ourselves, because we have no images of these people. We have no photos, no other testimonies. #00:24:52-2#
Heinz: #00:24:52-8# And these, these #00:24:53-6#
Heinz: #00:24:53-6# People came to this camp in Reichenau either alone or in groups, were still connected to their homeland or their places of origin and we decided that this slight inclination towards their origin would become part of this name stone, so that each of these stones would have different heights, different materials and also this different inclination in order to individualize these people. And in the arrangement across this surface, which Heike described earlier, we decided to find a certain order. And that would then somehow be left to Heike to describe. #00:25:33-4#
Tobias: #00:25:33-4# But when I do, because that's something I really like, that the name is on it, that the dates of life are on it, because especially in the camp people were dehumanized, they got a number and no longer a name. So of course some of them were already recognizable, but for me at least it's like giving them back the name they deserve, which is their name. Hermann: Yes, there #00:25:57-4#
Hermann: #00:25:57-4# You're right. That's quite interesting. We noticed that too. In this list of the deceased, the deceased of Jewish origin are clearly recognizable, because they were all called either Israel or Sara. That was also discussed internally. Should we now take back these names and practically not include this Israel and and and Sara in the name, or not? But the fact of the name was already a very important part for us. Heinz: And I could bring Bettina into play again with a short quote, because she once said that through this, through this intervention, we give people a face back. And I think that's what it's a bit about. So the name is really a representation of the person behind it and how they appeared to us. Hermann: Yes, you wanted to say something else about the time... [unintelligible]. Heike: Exactly. #00:26:52-8#
Heike: #00:26:53-2# So we then, we wanted to represent these 100, at that time 114, deceased people and then the question arose as to how we could place these stones on the site. And then we had the idea of using this long plot of land, which would actually be very difficult, on the one hand, but on the other hand would offer the possibility of using this long plot of land as a kind of calendar. So we virtually divided the plot into the months of the camp's existence and placed the name stones on the dates of death. And so it's actually quite easy to recognize, or to see quite clearly, that there are times when, as they say, a lot of people died. Simply because it was cold, because it was cruel, because a change of guard created even more cruel conditions in the camp and so on. Tobias: Also changes #00:27:51-6#
Tobias: #00:27:51-6# the use, so the where, so where it was then also used much more as an interim camp or transit camp, which was then from [19]43 onwards, as you say, very close to [19]43. #00:28:06-5#
Heike: #00:28:06-6# Yes, exactly and and and #00:28:08-2#
Heike: #00:28:08-2# So that it's also clear for people who will walk through the area that there were times that were particularly hard in the camp and where a lot of people died. And perhaps I can also add to this. Heinz described earlier how the people were thrown together. So you can imagine when they, when a group of these name stones with different inclinations and different colors stand close together, that represents people who sometimes couldn't even understand each other because they didn't speak the same language, because they came from somewhere in Russia, Ukraine, Poland. And then there was also this extreme situation of loneliness and speechlessness. #00:29:00-3#
[Tobias: #00:29:04-7# That means we have the landscaping with the name stones. There's also a structural aspect, a larger one, the so-called pavilion. Could you perhaps briefly explain to me what it's supposed to look like and also what the idea behind this look is? #00:29:22-4#
Heinz: #00:29:23-0# Um, yes, with pleasure. So originally we actually wanted to keep this part as small as possible. We wanted to provide information about this place on site, of course, but we wanted it to be the memorial site itself. Hermann said it earlier about walking and thinking. And that with the corresponding sense of hearing and listening experience of the stories or what else will be heard with this audio path and this simply being there and being in this place, in this landscape, would also have meant being exposed to the inclemency of the weather. If it rains, it rains and we would have provided very little weather... or weather protection. Originally, because we believe or actually thought that it makes little sense to put architecture there on its own. That some special, special part should almost act as a temple or something, but that it is actually about the place itself and about what is shown there and what can be experienced there. And we weren't entirely satisfied with ourselves. So in terms of providing detailed information, in terms of the possibility for people to gather there, we were asked to expand on these ideas and not just intervene minimally. Hermann, what would you say to that? Hermann: I think that what was perhaps a little less clear to us at the beginning was how important it is to impart knowledge on site. And that was of course a good reminder from the jury to stop us. Because the school classes and visitors who visit this place really need to be involved in the history. And the history of the camp and the history of this camp network. Once again, I would like to emphasize very clearly that this is not just about Reichenau. There were several camps, also in Innsbruck and Tyrol and throughout the German Reich. Telling this story is a story that is still little told. And now we basically have two large information boards and a place with street furniture that allows smaller groups to meet there and deal with the subject matter. #00:31:38-7#
Heike: #00:31:39-4# Yes, perhaps a brief description of this pavilion. It's actually a roof with an area of about 160 square meters made of steel, which is supported by steel columns at a height of just over 3 meters above the ground. And under this roof are two walls. One 12 meters long, one 11 meters long, which carry the information that Hermann has just described, in varying degrees of detail, depending on the speed of movement of the people who either pass by on their bikes or on foot or who sit or stand in the middle under this roofing and can read the information. And this roof, this pavilion roof, also represents the many different places of origin or the paths of the people who have crossed in this camp via steel beams laid in a criss-cross pattern, and the roof is only partially closed and in parts it is completely open. So it can rain through. It is then less protective than you would perceive a roof to be. And there are sections in this roof that are then replaced, where the roof surface is replaced by other elements. And maybe Ricarda could say something about that. #00:33:10-1#
Ricarda: #00:33:10-7# Yes, exactly. So. It was passed on to me because I mentioned the archaeologists' findings before. And among other things, there are a whole series of colorful shards of glass. And these shards of glass naturally also have an analogy in this fragmentation of the roof. And for us, they are also a nice motif for thinking or as a motif, both visually and in terms of content, because of course the question is, we have a fragment of something that is no longer whole, how do we now fill the gaps with an idea, with a narrative? Or do we leave these empty spaces and the visitors are also invited, so to speak, to fill these spaces with their own memories, experiences and stories. In other words, this is of course also something that can be told very well in the audio path. But it is also expressed in the architecture of the pavilion. #00:34:18-6#
Tobias: #00:34:18-9# That was also the ideal keyword. Thank you Ricarda. The audio path, that's what I wanted to talk about next in the background. Of course, we live in modern times and information must always be up to date. And that's where the archive you've already written about, Heike, the website in the background, is important. Let's go into this a little. Let's start with the audio path, I would say. An audio path is planned in the background and I'm now looking at or pointing to the one on my cell phone, where I've added Ricarda. If you can perhaps give us a little insight, Ricarda, into this audio path, what you can imagine it to be. #00:34:58-8#
Ricarda: #00:35:00-8# Basically, it's an offer to the visitors. In addition to the opportunity to simply walk along the path themselves, to also experience this audio piece, these connections, to walk along it. And these pieces are located at very specific points in this place, which create both historical references and references to the present, to the place between field recordings and historical recordings, between narratives and compositions. So I'm going to leave that a bit open, but it is, so to speak, a way of making the place present and, above all, the past of this place with its history, but also to establish a connection to the present, because of course, knowing that there is also a website that can go much deeper and more detailed into the historical contexts, it should definitely also be a poetic mediation, i.e. also a transfer of knowledge. A place of learning also consists of not telling everything, but also leaving space for those who listen. And listening simply has a very specific quality. It relates to the world, it creates a closeness and yes, for us that is somehow an important moment between didactic mediation, historical facts and the poetic creation of references. #00:36:39-9#
Hermann: #00:36:40-1# Yes, if I can briefly mention the website again, it's just like all the other parts of this memorial site that we want to create, it's not just a website. So this, this, it can or should be able to do more. And Ricarda has already mentioned that. Of course, this is primarily a place to impart knowledge, also for teachers. They can log in there, can get material there, more information, more image material. So even for people who can't be there, it's just as important a place to find these things and get information in several languages. But this archive of memory fragments will also be an integral part of the website. So the opportunity to listen to these stories, these interviews, is also available via the web portal. #00:37:42-0#
[Tobias: #00:37:46-7# Have we forgotten something that you might forget because we're already so involved in the topic? Heinz is already pointing it out. Heinz: A little something. Tobias: Please. #00:37:56-9#
Heinz: #00:37:57-1# So actually it's not a small thing, it's already #00:37:59-4#
Heinz: #00:38:00-4# of importance. Namely this, this pavilion. Ricarda already mentioned it earlier in relation to the audio path. This pavilion is also an offer. We've also positioned it and arranged it in such a way that it's actually easy to walk past. So we haven't put it in anyone's way. We don't force anyone to look at it, but we have tried to design it in such a way that you are drawn in and can actually come to rest between the two walls. And yet, if you take up the offer, you can linger there quite well. You can also meet up there. And in this respect, I think the pavilion is also the link between the audio path, between the memorial site itself, this landscape, between the fact that there is a virtual offer where you can inform yourself in depth and where work continues. So with this pavilion, we intend to show current information and current developments. That there may be parallel developments with other media such as a graphic novel that is created and then exhibited there, with possibly lecture activities that can somehow be represented there or perhaps even always have the pavilion as a goal or starting point. So we see this culture of remembrance less as a monument, where we say we're making a statement and that's how it will be forever, but actually the memorial site itself, and this pavilion in particular, is really just a point in the landscape from which this culture of remembrance has to start again and again and where it has to keep finding its way and where it has to keep coming up with and practising new forms over time. Hermann: I think you've said something very important. The monument always runs the risk of becoming a non-place. Either it is too sacred or too untouchable. The good fortune that we have with this place, in quotation marks, is that it is next to the camp, so as such it doesn't have this genius loci [literally meaning "the spirit of the place"]. But we really didn't want to create a non-place. So it's not a place that is now urging people to be affected. It can, if you deal with it, but you can also walk past it. Of course, we hope that nobody will walk past it in that sense. But not taking it away from the city was almost important to us in a way. #00:40:21-4#
[Outro music]
Tobias: #00:40:41-9# Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. #00:40:48-6#
2. Season:
The second season is all about lived history. In the interviews, contemporary witnesses from Innsbruck talk about their memories of childhood, school days, leisure activities and much more. The second season contains six episodes, which will be published in a 14-day rhythm.
1. Season:
The first season will focus not only on the company's own archives, but also on other archives in the city area, such as the Tyrolean Provincial Archives or the Subculture Archives. The first season contains six episodes, which are published in a 14-day rhythm.
S'Foreword
Stadtbibliothek meets Pop.Kultur.Literatur - in the Stadtbibliothek podcast, librarians Pia and Christina and Young-Hosts Michelle and Jacqueline talk to each other and their guests about literary pop culture, with books and reading naturally taking center stage. In between, there are interviews with authors who are guests at the city library, in keeping with the motto "short and sweet".
Please let us know your opinion or topic requests for the podcast "S'Vorwort" at: post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at.
The episodes contain a translation in text form (transcript). This translation is done by converting the dialect into High German.
Transcription
[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library. [Voice modulates] [Intro music]
[00:00:07] Boris: Hello and welcome back to "Vorwort - Kurz und Schmerzlos", today with Paul Scheibelhofer.
[00:00:29] My name is Boris Schön. Paul, great to have you here. Paul: Hello.
[00:00:35] Boris: First of all, I would just like you to introduce yourself.
[00:00:40] Paul: Yes, I'm an assistant professor at the Institute for Educational Science at the University of Innsbruck
[00:00:47] and I'm responsible for critical gender studies.
[00:00:51] And again, the topic I spend most of my time on is men, masculinities,
[00:00:59] young, old, fathers in different life situations.
[00:01:03] Boris: The university website says that you work in the field of critical masculinity research
[00:01:09] and fatherhood research, among other things. Now I'm simply faced with the very banal question,
[00:01:16] what does that mean exactly? - Paul: Yes, many people are surprised that this exists.
[00:01:22] Critical masculinity research assumes that we still don't live in a society,
[00:01:29] where men and women have equal rights, but that men have more power, more resources,
[00:01:35] also in our society than women.
[00:01:38] And she now asks how this inequality affects men, their lives, their desires, their goals,
[00:01:47] on their ideas of what it means to be a man, but we also ask in the other direction,
[00:01:53] how what men do can reinforce and reproduce or perhaps change these unequal gender relations.
[00:02:03] Boris: So it's not just about the man as perpetrator, but also about the problems that a man has because of his masculinity?
[00:02:11] Paul: Yes, unfortunately, when we look at the issue of violence, for example, men are more often than average perpetrators.
[00:02:20] But that's an aspect of social reality and it's very wide-ranging when we look at gender relations.
[00:02:27] No, it's also about why, for example, boys' T-shirts often have the animals that go hunting printed on them
[00:02:36] and girls' T-shirts are more often printed with animals that are hunted.
[00:02:41] So it's about understanding how it actually works, that we become men in this society.
[00:02:48] And we are often perpetrators in some respects, but also victims, sometimes players,
[00:02:54] and sometimes we're also a fly in the ointment, we don't play by the rules that apply to men and that's where it gets exciting.
[00:03:02] Boris: Can you briefly define what "masculinity" is in some way?
[00:03:06] Or is it the whole spectrum that you've already touched on a bit?
[00:03:10] Paul: Well, I would say that there is no fundamental characteristic that is typically masculine per se.
[00:03:23] All the modern research actually shows that we can't go looking for something in the body
[00:03:32] and because they have a clear side of characteristics, THAT is what "masculinity" means.
[00:03:38] And if we don't have the body as the answer to what "masculinity" actually means, then it's actually us humans, us as a society.
[00:03:48] That is, what it means to be a man is what we define as a society.
[00:03:55] That changes, it's not the same at all times, for example when we look at our own grandfathers, their norms of masculinity, their ideas of what a man should be,
[00:04:05] is usually different from us.
[00:04:08] So obviously in a very short period in human history, let's say 50 to 70 years, there's been quite a lot of change.
[00:04:16] So it's probably society that says what's masculine and what's not.
[00:04:21] And there are a few characteristics that keep recurring, such as being more active than passive, more self-confident than doubtful.
[00:04:32] That's why they tend not to seek help, but rather to explain the world to others.
[00:04:38] So there are characteristics that we find again and again in books, in texts, in plays, in films.
[00:04:46] You can see what we think men are made of at the moment.
[00:04:49] Boris: Now I have a question:
[00:04:51] You're our guest on stage at the city library tonight as part of the presentation of Katharina Cipulka's "Solange" project.
[00:05:02] And you're supplementing this part from a male perspective, so to speak.
[00:05:09] Her project is about achieving equality, so to speak.
[00:05:15] How can masculinity research contribute to this?
[00:05:19] Can it explain things better, offer suggestions for solutions?
[00:05:24] Paul: Yes, I think so. On the one hand, we can look at the structures that lead to so little and so slow change.
[00:05:37] Or even regression in some cases.
[00:05:39] So the Court of Auditors has just calculated that the already very low number of men who take parental leave,
[00:05:48] that compared to 2020 - back then it was just under 5 percent in 2020 - that this has fallen again.
[00:05:56] So we can use our theories about what constitutes masculinity and what is then also rejected, for example unpaid work with children,
[00:06:07] that obviously still doesn't fit into our image of
[00:06:11] what a successful man does all day and all night. So our theories can
[00:06:16] I think on the one hand they can give us clues as to why there is so little change and so slow and
[00:06:23] it helps to take a focused look at men. Nevertheless, with the theories of
[00:06:29] gender and research and feminist research, but understandably this was often
[00:06:34] not looked at men so clearly and what we can also try to do is find out,
[00:06:41] yes, where are there changes, where is there something like "Caring
[00:06:46] Masculinity", in other words a masculinity that is not characterized by competition, devaluation, etc. [00:06:51
[00:06:51] but through care, nurturing, solidarity. In other words, I think we can also
[00:06:56] critical masculinity research to point out these ways in which changes are taking place and
[00:07:04] perhaps also support these processes. - Boris: Now I have another personal
[00:07:13] question, how did you come up with this topic or how did you become interested in this ... because you have to somehow
[00:07:18] studied before you started teaching it, what was your biographical history
[00:07:24] about it? - Paul: Yes, so somehow I got into gender studies almost by chance while studying sociology
[00:07:32] slipped into it. That started at the end of the 90s and back then all the seminars were actually
[00:07:39] women's studies when it came to gender studies. But I still found that extremely interesting
[00:07:46] but after a few years I realized that my mostly female
[00:07:52] fellow students, they had another benefit that I was missing and that was this
[00:07:57] personal involvement and I can remember that I was on a year abroad in Amsterdam
[00:08:03] and I even remember which bookstore, I went there once and
[00:08:08] I thought to myself, is there actually any gender research with a focus on men? And
[00:08:12] of course there is, if you look for it, and then I actually studied it myself
[00:08:16] taught myself, because my whole time at university there wasn't a single course on the subject of
[00:08:21] masculinity and then I actually started teaching it without ever attending it myself
[00:08:27] and fortunately things have changed a bit in the meantime and
[00:08:33] yes, I'm also pleased to be a part of the fact that masculinity research has also become
[00:08:38] being taught a bit more widely at universities. - Boris: In the course of your research activities, have there been
[00:08:45] or your acquisition of knowledge, was there ever a real "wow, aha" effect where you thought,
[00:08:51] I never thought about it like that? - Paul: I think that happened a lot. So I
[00:08:59] think that gender studies in particular, if we get involved in it, then it doesn't leave us
[00:09:04] cold and in the best case scenario, you don't come out of such an engagement with gender studies
[00:09:10] as the same person as when you went in. That's different from when I somehow write texts
[00:09:15] about geographical phenomena, I don't know what, I think. So at least for me it's like that,
[00:09:24] that there have often been moments that are a mixture of, maybe a
[00:09:31] being caught out a bit. "Aha, I didn't realize that." I might have been myself
[00:09:36] part of some ultimately problematic structures and then also often like this,
[00:09:45] well, maybe that's a bit pathetic, but it's also a way of being freed from such self-evident things.
[00:09:53] So this fundamental perspective that the way we live is not self-evident,
[00:10:01] that we actually produce this, this basic observation, that has me insanely fascinated by the
[00:10:10] chair. I had this suspicion the whole time I was growing up that
[00:10:19] this world doesn't have to be like this and that in such a sociological perspective with a
[00:10:26] focus on gender also showed me: "No, it can be done differently." That was on
[00:10:35] impressive on many levels and it's an ongoing process to find that out,
[00:10:43] what it all actually means. - Boris: Yeah, Paul, thank you so much for this totally
[00:10:47] exciting information and this conversation. Finally, as always, I have a question,
[00:10:52] do you have a book that you can recommend to our listeners? - Paul: Yes, so if you're interested in
[00:10:59] masculinity, then I currently recommend the book "Warum
[00:11:04] Feminism is good for men" by Jens van Tricht. This is a great activist who lives in
[00:11:11] Amsterdam is doing great things to somehow advance progressive masculinities
[00:11:17] and he has a lot of the knowledge that he has acquired, but also what he has learned in the
[00:11:24] in the course of all these workshops that he's been doing for years and other projects like that
[00:11:29] he has generated this knowledge, he has summarized it in this partly funny, partly also
[00:11:34] upsetting and really good to read book "Why feminism is good for men". - Boris: Thank you very much
[00:11:42] also for this tip and I'm looking forward to an exciting evening tonight. - Paul: Thank you. [Outro music]
[00:12:12] [Boris speaks] The foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen, the
[00:12:18] Audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Boris speaks]
Transcription
[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to increased library visits. [Voice modulates] [Intro music]
[00:00:07] Boris: So, hello and welcome back to the "Foreword - Short and sweet".
[00:00:28] Today with Katharina Cibulka. Yes, Katharina, good to have you here.
[00:00:33] Katharina: Thank you for inviting Boris.
[00:00:35] Boris: My name is, as you've already mentioned my first name, Boris Schön.
[00:00:39] And I would like to start by asking you to introduce yourself very briefly.
[00:00:44] Katharina: My name is Katharina Cibulka. I am a visual artist and filmmaker.
[00:00:50] I'm an Innsbruck native, returned after many years in Vienna and abroad.
[00:00:57] I'm here now because of the project "Solange".
[00:01:00] Boris: Exactly, and we have the pleasure of doing that tonight,
[00:01:04] even if the podcast will only be broadcast after this event,
[00:01:08] which I will be welcoming together with Tina Themel on the stage of the city library.
[00:01:14] And you will be presenting the book "Let's Go Equal - The Solange Project".
[00:01:21] So this is a kind of "showcase" of this work, is that right?
[00:01:26] Katharina: Exactly, the Solange book was created after 28 Solange networks.
[00:01:31] "Solange" is a participatory feminist art project
[00:01:36] and we play on scaffolding on building sites with nets that would be hanging there anyway.
[00:01:44] And we stitch feminist sentences into them.
[00:01:48] And they always start with "As long as ..." and end with "... i am a feminist.", "... i am a feminist."
[00:01:54] Boris: I think many of our listeners will be familiar with the project.
[00:01:58] It has already been presented very internationally.
[00:02:04] What is the core objective of the project for you or how did the idea of doing it come about?
[00:02:11] Katharina: Well, the core objective is definitely equality.
[00:02:14] I think that after so many centuries, men and women and all genders should meet as equals.
[00:02:22] And I really don't understand why that should be so difficult.
[00:02:25] And that's what I stand up for.
[00:02:27] And this project is about simply wanting to sensitize people where there is no equality.
[00:02:35] Boris: That means, in theory, there could be a point in the future where the project would no longer be necessary.
[00:02:43] Katharina: That would be the big goal, so to speak.
[00:02:45] There's an international report that looks every year to see how many years it will take.
[00:02:54] And we were already at 103 years [Boris laughs], and after Corona
[00:02:58] we're now back up to 148 years.
[00:03:01] So it will take that long.
[00:03:04] And when I look at the situation worldwide and I'm already experiencing this backlash,
[00:03:09] it will probably take much longer.
[00:03:14] And that's why I'm even more committed to ensuring that we keep our rights.
[00:03:20] Boris: Now besides the risk that you might not live to see the success you want this project to have in terms of social change,
[00:03:32] but would you have thought that the project would be so successful, at least in the present, in terms of perception and...
[00:03:39] Well, it's been presented very often and is doing the rounds internationally.
[00:03:43] Katharina: So at the beginning I started with the idea and of course I didn't think that it would have such a big...
[00:03:49] that it would have such an impact, such a big effect and also such a broad impact.
[00:03:54] I started with a network in Innsbruck, in a small project.
[00:03:59] And I noticed straight away that it moved a lot of people.
[00:04:03] And for many it's a kind of projection surface in public space.
[00:04:07] Because I think we all feel that something is wrong and that it's actually unfair.
[00:04:13] The women feel it anyway and the men, I would say, also feel that something is wrong.
[00:04:18] Some are trying to change, others are trying to get the old order back.
[00:04:24] So there's a tension there and these nets were good for that, because they hang in the public space and are a projection surface for many.
[00:04:32] And I think that's why we're being invited so much now, internationally, because it's a huge topic.
[00:04:39] Boris: You've already said before,
[00:04:41] that it should take longer at the moment after all these years, with all these setbacks,
[00:04:48] that are also happening socially, although we are trying to move forward.
[00:04:52] Are there things you can laugh about in this context or is it a serious matter?
[00:04:57] Katharina: Well actually, at the moment I feel more like crying.
[00:05:00] So I'm also thinking now with the election or re-election of Trump with all the
[00:05:06] election results here in Austria, you can already see that there is a very strong, conservative
[00:05:12] wave is sweeping over us and that really, really concerns me.
[00:05:15] Especially for the younger generation, because I think they're going to have a very difficult time,
[00:05:21] because the young women are very empowered because of the last decades and also very
[00:05:29] educated and they can no longer be pushed back.
[00:05:32] And I think it will be difficult for young men to find women because
[00:05:38] if they don't change and move with the times, then maybe they'll stay alone
[00:05:45] and I feel very sorry for the young men too.
[00:05:47] Boris: Yes, we are curious to see how the future will develop.
[00:05:51] Hopefully for the better.
[00:05:53] Katharina: Of course, I'm a total optimist, from that point of view.
[00:05:57] I always look at what's happening and I also see a lot of young people,
[00:06:03] who are really great role models for me now and who are already taking different paths
[00:06:10] go different ways.
[00:06:11] Boris: A completely different question, but one that is a bit obvious to me now:
[00:06:16] You're also a reader yourself at the city library in Innsbruck.
[00:06:20] What is important to you about libraries, or rather, what is perhaps important
[00:06:26] for you at the city library?
[00:06:27] It's not a very old project.
[00:06:30] It's only been around since 2018.
[00:06:31] Katharina: Well, I was just talking to my husband today about the fact that it's an incredible project
[00:06:36] great space for everyone and not just as a space for the books, but also
[00:06:42] for many, many people who sit here and read and when you walk past, you always see
[00:06:46] always see that there's a lot going on and also a lot of young people studying and learning here.
[00:06:51] And I think that's worked out really well, this idea and for me libraries are
[00:06:58] an infinite, huge treasure trove of knowledge anyway and even if we're online or in the
[00:07:06] digitally, in the di-... yes, we can access so much online, having a book in our hands is
[00:07:10] something very special and that's why I'm also very happy that we now have this
[00:07:14] show and have this book.
[00:07:17] My book "Let's Go Equal", because this project is so much more, that is, it's connected
[00:07:23] only "for so long", as long as there's a construction site and then it's gone and my great fear
[00:07:29] was that if I stopped in a few years, there would be nothing left of the project.
[00:07:33] And that's why a book is just a really nice document of all these endless crazy
[00:07:40] stories that we've experienced over the last six years.
[00:07:43] Boris: Yes, now I have one last question for our listeners.
[00:07:47] Do you have a tip, a book that you particularly like or that you can recommend?
[00:07:54] Katharina: Yes, of course, a very recent book by Franziska Schutzbach, for example, called "Die Revolution
[00:08:03] of Connectedness": How female solidarity is changing society and that is really
[00:08:10] quite a nice book, I would say, because it's about how
[00:08:17] we women can show more solidarity again and not always ask the question
[00:08:23] how do we get the men on board, but rather how do we get the women on board?
[00:08:26] boat.
[00:08:27] Because the big social changes have always happened when
[00:08:31] simply many women have come together.
[00:08:33] And that's a really nice thought for me, that we women are now simply joining forces
[00:08:40] together.
[00:08:41] Boris: Yes, thank you very much for talking to us.
[00:08:43] I'm looking forward to today's event and yes ... Katharina: [smiling] Let's go equal.
[00:08:49] Thank you.
[00:08:50] [Outro music]
[00:08:51] [Boris speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen, the
[00:09:19] Audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Boris speaks]
Transcription
[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to increased library visits. [Voice modulates]
[00:00:07] Jaci: Christmas edition, take one.
[00:00:10] [sings] ~ We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. ~
[00:00:19] Shelly: Beautiful. Jaci: Thank you. Shelly: Christina can use that as an intro.
[00:00:22] Jaci: [laughs] Welcome to our episode, which is entirely in my singing.
[00:00:26] Shelly: Yes, absolutely. [laughter]
[00:00:28] [Intro music] Shelly: Hello and welcome to the preface, the Innsbruck City Library podcast.
[00:00:48] My name is Shelly and across from me is Jaci and today it's going to be Christmas.
[00:00:55] Let's take this as an opportunity to talk about literature and movies about Christmas.
[00:01:04] So how has this traditional festival always been dealt with in literature and film?
[00:01:13] It has become a trope, so to speak, and has it changed anything?
[00:01:18] If so, what has changed in this time and what has remained the same in essence?
[00:01:24] Jaci: Exactly. Shelly: And then let's just go inside. [Jaci laughs]
[00:01:27] We thought about what's the first thing that comes to mind when we think about Christmas literature.
[00:01:35] And we both came to the conclusion that it was actually "A Christmas Story" by Charles Dickens.
[00:01:42] Everyone knows it and it was first published on December 19, 1843.
[00:01:50] Jaci: Perfect marketing team that it came out at Christmas time.
[00:01:55] Shelly: Yeah.
[00:01:56] Jaci: Even back then.
[00:01:57] Shelly: Always knew how to sell it well. [Laughs]
[00:01:59] And it was published under the original title "A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas".
[00:02:06] Jaci: That's a long title.
[00:02:08] You know what it's about right away. [laughs]
[00:02:10] Shelly: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:02:14] Jaci: And I mainly came up with this story, not from the original book, I've actually never read that.
[00:02:23] Shelly: You haven't?
[00:02:24] Jaci: No.
[00:02:25] Sorry, maybe I will, because we definitely have it in stock.
[00:02:29] Shelly: I have it in my private library.
[00:02:30] Jaci: On my library gnome. [both speaking in unison]
[00:02:34] I don't have a copy at home, so that would be a Secret Santa idea. [laughs]
[00:02:37] Little side info, there's another Christmas Secret Santa among the staff, and whoever drew Jaci,
[00:02:45] she would like to have the "Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. [both laugh]
[00:02:48] Jaci: Exactly.
[00:02:49] But now, all joking aside.
[00:02:52] I know the story of the "Christmas Carol" from a Barbie movie.
[00:02:57] And it's actually the same principle, only with women.
[00:03:01] So Barbie is Ebenezer Scrooge and is haunted by drei ghosts and then comes draup with the idea that Christmas is really great and so on.
[00:03:09] And that's how I know the story. [laughs]
[00:03:11] And then a few years ago I actually watched the original or the first film version and it's really scary.
[00:03:17] So I don't find it very Christmassy, [laughs] I was very scared.
[00:03:21] But I understand the meaning of the story and Barbie did a great job.
[00:03:27] Shelly: Yeah, I totally agree. [Jaci laughs]
[00:03:29] There are countless adaptations of this story.
[00:03:34] So it's kind of the ground base for everything Christmas that has followed in the years since.
[00:03:43] I think there's even a Mickey Mouse movie.
[00:03:46] Jaci: Yeah, that's right.
[00:03:48] Isn't Donald [Duck] even a ghost?
[00:03:51] I don't know.
[00:03:52] Shelly: I don't know. I don't know at all anymore,
[00:03:53] who is being "redempted" ... [pause]
[00:03:56] Jaci: We'll have to google that, I can't let that sit on me right now.
[00:04:00] Okay, there actually is, that wasn't just a figment of Shelly's imagination, there is "Mickey's Christmas Carol",
[00:04:07] where the Scrooge McDuck is Ebeneza Scrooge or the,
[00:04:12] ma, now I've lost the name again - Scrooge McDuck -
[00:04:15] and then the story remains the same and he is then also accompanied by drei Christmas spirits
[00:04:22] in the form of Jimmy Cricket, Willy the Giant and the Weasels.
[00:04:31] Well, that sounds very entertaining, it only lasts 26 minutes. [laughs]
[00:04:35] Shelly: Ah, these are those typical Disney short stories.
[00:04:40] Jaci: Very nice, good.
[00:04:41] I'm glad you learned that now too.
[00:04:43] Shelly: You can watch that this year.
[00:04:45] Jaci: Right, that will be my new "Christmas Carol" experience.
[00:04:48] Hopefully it's not as scary [laughs] as the original.
[00:04:51] Exactly, another story that I always find very Christmassy, which I also know from Barbie,
[00:04:57] is "The Nutcracker".
[00:04:58] It's the original novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann, which I've never read either,
[00:05:06] Shame on me again.
[00:05:07] Shelly: I don't think I've ever read it either.
[00:05:08] Jaci: Then I don't feel quite so bad.
[00:05:10] There are also numerous movie adaptations of Barbie.
[00:05:15] And the famous ballet, I think most people know it from ballet.
[00:05:22] Shelly: Yeah, so I would have thought of ballet first.
[00:05:27] Jaci: Not Barbie? Shelly: No. [both laugh]
[00:05:29] But I looked at it.
[00:05:31] Jaci: Thank God, otherwise I would have had to lend it to you.
[00:05:34] It's in my home library.
[00:05:37] Shelly: And what are the go-to Christmas novels and movies that you have to watch every year without fail?
[00:05:49] Jaci: Well, I actually have very few novels.
[00:05:52] In my research, I've now found out that "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott,
[00:05:58] "Little Women" is seen as a Christmas novella, so to speak.
[00:06:02] There's also a Christmas scene, but for me it doesn't make up the whole novel,
[00:06:07] but it's a great novel, you can always read it.
[00:06:10] And then of course there are lots of contemporary novels that simply take Christmas as their theme,
[00:06:21] mainly romantic, so romantic comedies as books.
[00:06:27] So there are an extremely large number.
[00:06:29] So if you google it, there are hundreds of thousands of titles, none of which I've read yet, I don't think.
[00:06:37] But then there are "snowflake dreams".
[00:06:40] Shelly: Is that Karen Swan?
[00:06:42] Jaci: Yeah, like you know it.
[00:06:44] Shelly: Yeah, I read them all the time! [both laugh]
[00:06:46] Jaci: How cool.
[00:06:48] There's "No Winter Without You" by Emily Stone or "Snow Glittering in Love" by Karin Lindberg,
[00:06:57] "Sparkling and Christmas Magic", anthology 4 in 1.
[00:07:02] Shelly: Do you know how many there are?
[00:07:04] Jaci: [laughs] No. Shelly: [amused] Are you looking on Google and not in the Littera catalog? Jaci: Yes!
[00:07:09] "I didn't have you on my wish list."
[00:07:11] My personal favorite, that sounds wonderful. Shelly: Great.
[00:07:14] Jaci: Right, now there are many, many novels.
[00:07:17] And the funny thing about these novels, even though we haven't read most of them,
[00:07:22] we dare to say that they mostly follow the same principle.
[00:07:29] Shelly: What's that?
[00:07:32] That there's usually one Christmas grouch who doesn't believe in the magic of Christmas.
[00:07:41] Shelly: So OG Ebenezer Scrooge?
[00:07:43] Jaci: Exactly, exactly.
[00:07:45] And then these characters meet a Christmas lover.
[00:07:50] Who then teaches them the magic of Christmas, so to speak, and shows them how wonderful it actually is.
[00:07:58] And in this process, these two people, who are usually enemies or don't like each other,
[00:08:04] so we have Enemies-to-Lovers again, [laughs] if anyone knows our old podcast episodes.
[00:08:11] Moments where then just, but then they fall in love in the process of the Christmas magic.
[00:08:18] That's my thesis, that it's actually always the same.
[00:08:23] Shelly: Yes, Christmas is the best love potion, so to speak.
[00:08:28] Jaci: Exactly. So it's snowing, bonfires, wine, reindeer, there's always kids somewhere who are excited about Christmas.
[00:08:41] Shelly: Then when they transfer the magic that the boys have lost a magic of Christmas.
[00:08:46] Jaci: Nice, nice, nice. Homey feelings come up.
[00:08:50] Most novels follow this principle.
[00:08:56] And in connection with these novels there is also the well-known phenomenon,
[00:09:01] that I think everyone who has Netflix knows, and that is the Hallmark Movies.
[00:09:07] Shelly: I don't think they're that present on Netflix. Jaci: Yes, they are.
[00:09:10] Shelly: Already? Because I always watch them on Amazon.
[00:09:13] Jaci: Well, I only have Netflix and at Christmas time there are a hundred thousand movies with the same cover. [laughs]
[00:09:20] And a personal anecdote, my mom and I always have a day at Christmas time,
[00:09:26] where we just bake cookies all day and we just watch movies like that all day.
[00:09:32] And there's nothing more entertaining because at the end of the day you don't know,
[00:09:36] which movie was which because the same thing happens in all of them.
[00:09:39] Shelly: Yeah, that's right.
[00:09:40] Jaci: That's wonderful.
[00:09:41] For those who don't know Hallmark Movies or aren't familiar with this phenomenon,
[00:09:47] I've picked out a definition.
[00:09:49] [clears throat] "The Hallmark movie is a genre of romantic comedy produced for television,
[00:09:56] that has become so ubiquitous that the term Hallmark movie has been expanded
[00:10:02] and now encompasses any television movie with a similar tone or aesthetic,
[00:10:08] regardless of whether it was produced by the Hallmark Channel or not."
[00:10:13] So it really all started at the Hallmark Channel, an American TV network,
[00:10:19] that produced these movies.
[00:10:21] Because now, because all the movies happen on these movies and have the same plot,
[00:10:26] all the Christmas movies that happen are called "Hallmark Movies".
[00:10:30] Shelly: That means they've coined a whole new genre.
[00:10:33] Jaci: Exactly.
[00:10:34] Shelly: Wow, zach.
[00:10:35] Jaci: And I'm glad drum. I look forward to the new movies every year.
[00:10:38] Shelly: Uh! Jaci: Uh?
[00:10:40] Shelly: I heard something.
[00:10:41] I don't know if that's true.
[00:10:42] Now it may be fake news, but I've read on social media.
[00:10:46] Jaci: [both laugh] Reliable sources.
[00:10:48] Shelly: That a Hallmark movie is about to be produced,
[00:10:51] based on the love story of Taylor Swift
[00:10:55] and her current partner, what's his name ...
[00:10:57] Jaci: No, Travis Kelce ... Shelly: Exactly, Travis Kelce to be produced.
[00:10:59] So, pop star constantly on tour, biggest pop star ever,
[00:11:05] falls in love with ... Jaci: With the football player. -shelly: Exactly.
[00:11:07] [Jaci sighs]
[00:11:08] Shelly: Trouble, trouble, trouble,
[00:11:11] Finally, happy ending under the Christmas tree.
[00:11:13] Jaci: [gushes] Ah, how great!
[00:11:15] Yeah, okay, then I'm back.
[00:11:17] That sounds perfect, I was there again.
[00:11:19] They got me again with Taylor Swift
[00:11:22] and Christmas thing.
[00:11:24] Shelly: I find that interesting too,
[00:11:26] that current topics are included in the genre.
[00:11:29] Jaci: Current topics, yes.
[00:11:31] I just think it's a shame,
[00:11:33] I haven't seen a queer Hallmark movie yet.
[00:11:36] Shelly: Right. - Jaci: So it's always very heteronormative.
[00:11:38] It's always ... - Shelly: It's always very traditional.
[00:11:40] Maybe because it's a traditional Christian festival and stuff.
[00:11:44] Jaci: Yes, but ...
[00:11:45] We're in the 21st century.
[00:11:47] Shelly: Yeah, I'm right there with you. - Jaci: So ...
[00:11:49] Hallmark, if you're listening:
[00:11:52] We want a queer Hallmark movie.
[00:11:54] [Jaci laughs]
[00:11:55] Um...
[00:11:56] And how do these movies work?
[00:11:58] Just like I mentioned before with the novels.
[00:12:01] Only there are usually more specific processes
[00:12:05] than with the novels.
[00:12:07] And it's mostly ...
[00:12:09] I'm telling this from the perspective of most movies.
[00:12:13] It also exists with "gender reversed".
[00:12:15] So I'm telling it now from the perspective of a woman making a career in a big city
[00:12:18] and makes it big.
[00:12:20] And then her company sends her to a small village, so to speak.
[00:12:26] To somehow boost the economy there
[00:12:28] or to carry out a project.
[00:12:30] And that's very often ...
[00:12:32] Um ... also the home village of this person. [laughs]
[00:12:35] Um... and then they return home.
[00:12:37] And either find their high school sweetheart again.
[00:12:41] Or a widower with a daughter.
[00:12:45] With whom they then fall in love.
[00:12:47] The problem is that the project that the businesswoman has,
[00:12:50] is usually the ruin of the person's business,
[00:12:55] that she falls in love with.
[00:12:57] So it's usually like, "We're building a new shopping center.
[00:13:00] And it's stupidly right where the handsome widower
[00:13:04] has his Christmas tree farm." [Shelly chuckles]
[00:13:06] And then just put that down.
[00:13:09] But then after she falls in love and talks about this widower
[00:13:13] or high school sweetheart again,
[00:13:16] how wonderful Christmas is.
[00:13:17] So, again, this Christmas grouch meets Christmas lover.
[00:13:21] Um... she comes drauf that the Christmas tree farm
[00:13:26] much better than her big corporate company.
[00:13:29] Shelly: And that family and love are much more important than a career.
[00:13:32] Jaci: Exactly, exactly.
[00:13:34] And then she mostly stays in the village
[00:13:36] and leaves her career behind.
[00:13:38] Over.
[00:13:40] Shelly: A bit anti-feminist, isn't it?
[00:13:43] Jaci: Quite problematic these movies on so many levels. [both laugh]
[00:13:48] But that's how most movies go, I have to say.
[00:13:52] Sometimes a prince is thrown in,
[00:13:55] so that it's kind of a royal Christmas ...
[00:13:58] Exactly, a royal Christmas or something.
[00:14:01] But it usually takes place in a small village
[00:14:03] and women from the big city come to the small village
[00:14:06] and fall in love with Christmas.
[00:14:08] So, that's ... - Yeah, that's the gist. That's the gist.
[00:14:10] That's all there i