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ABSTRACT
Models of education that we find in city museums in Austria bear the danger of avoiding discussing the Nazi past. But on the other hand, there is potential in the freedom of being about to skirt it. The lack of pressure to address the topic can lead to a more open approach in discussions, but the ease with which the topic can be avoided is dangerous. Museum spaces between leisure and learning bear the potential to implement open learning models that are, similar to social research, oriented more towards processes and the development of questions than the transmission of already fixed content. Following the approach of research-oriented learning in my own practice at the City Museum of Linz (the city where Hitler and Eichmann grew up), I discuss its challenges, especially in regard to experiences of antisemitism and racism-based forms of exclusions. I use my own learning process as research to suggest methodological developments that allow addressing the issues of antisemitism and the experiences of exclusions in a multidirectional, open, and sensitive way.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The main collection was bought by the city in 1927; the museum in the Nordico building was founded in 1973.
2 Cradle (1940) from the National Socialist era with a Reich eagle and carved motifs. This cradle was probably used during naming ceremonies, which were intended to replace baptisms during the Nazi era. Its inscriptions refer to the racist, anti-socialist family ideology: “Everything is punished in the seed”; “Family be your anchor, love be your calvary and the homeland be sacred to you”; “All mothers gave you German blood, keep it pure, it is your highest good.” https://www.nordico.at/en/museum/sammlung/wiege-aus-der-ns-zeit-mit-reichsadler-mit-geschnitzten-motiven-um-1940 (accessed 22 November 2023).
3 https://www.nordico.at/ausstellungen/aphrodite (accessed 7 October 2023).
4 https://www.nordico.at/ausstellungen/der-junge-hitler-praegende-jahre-eines-diktators-1889-1914 (accessed 7 October 2023).
5 This space, the former interactive educational room, was developed by Karin Schneider in close collaboration with the supervisor of the new permanent exhibition Prof. Birgit Kirchmayr. The participatory elements of this room are based on suggestions of Wolfgang Schmutz.
6 See the 2024 program https://www.nordico.at/en/exhibtions/vorschau (accessed 7 January 2024).
7 More elaboration of the landscape of museum-based Holocaust education, see the introduction of this volume.
8 E.g. Doppelbauer, Museeum der Vermittlung.
9 Hein, “The Constructivist Museum.”
10 Groys, Die Logik der Sammlung. Macdonald, The Politics of Display.
11 Fuchs, "Rasse", "Volk", Geschlecht anthropologische.
12 On the connection between sites of violence and museums, see Dziuban, Museum-Cemetary.
13 https://www.voestalpine.com/group/en/group/overview/history/nazi-forced-labor/ (accessed 12 November 2023).
14 https://www.voestalpine.com/group/en/group/ (accessed 12 November 2023).
15 Kirchmayr, “Kulturhauptstadt des Führers"?; Kirchmayr, Sonderauftrag Linz.
16 http://www.insitu-linz09.at/projekt.html (accessed 20 November 2023).
17 https://memact.at/conference.pdf (accessed 20 October 2023).
18 The basic concept of these workshops was developed by Cecile Belmont, Korinna Kohout and Karin Schneider.
19 Appadurai, The Right to Research.
20 Ibid.
21 E.g. Wöhrer et al., Partizipative Aktionsforschung mit Kindern und Jugendlichen.
22 https://www.nordico.at/en/exhibitions/der-junge-hitler-praegende-jahre-eines-diktators-1889-1914 (accessed 20 November 2023).
23 https://www.museumnoe.at/de/haus-der-geschichte/Sonderausstellung/der_junge_Hitler (accessed 3 November 2023).
24 Most of the classes that came were from the upper secondary school levels (high school, 16/17 years old). The program, however, was also for the fourth grade of the secondary middle school, when the Holocaust first appears in the curriculum for this school type.
25 Memory minutes and transcript, private archive Karin Schneider/MemAct!
26 Ibid.
27 For analyses of these transformational moments in education, see also Schneider, Transition Point.
28 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory.
29 Landkammer and Schneider, Conflict Learning. http://www.traces.polimi.it/2019/02/26/issue-07-contentious-heritages-and-arts-a-critical-companion/ (accessed 20 November 2023).
30 Sznaider, Fluchtpunkte der Erinnerung.
31 http://www.insitu-linz09.at/de/gastbeitraege/john-michael.html (accessed 21 November 2023).
32 To the context of my educational methods, see e.g. Hubin and Schneider, “Gemeinsame Sachen und Denkbilder.” Hubin and Schneider, “In the Unrest of Implication.”
33 Reflections on the problems of these subject positions and the tensions and contradictions in education activities, see e.g. Schneider, “Über die Schwierigkeit nicht rassistisch zu/zuschreiben.”
34 Rajal, Holocaust Education ohne Antisemitismus.
35 Elke Rajal, Countering Antisemitism through Holocaust Education. A Cross-National Comparison (lecture abstract in the context of the RC2S2, Research Center for Computational Social Science, research group was established at the Institute of Empirical Studies of the Eötvös Loránd University), https://rc2s2.elte.hu/en/elke-rajal-university-of-passau-countering-antisemitism-through-holocaust-education-a-cross-national-comparison/ (accessed 1 January 2024).
36 https://stadtgeschichte.linz.at/denkmal/Default.asp?action=kuenstler&id=148 (accessed 20 November 2023).
37 https://stadtgeschichte.linz.at/denkmal/Default.asp?action=denkmaldetail&id=2717 (accessed 20 November 2023).
38 Laher, Der bis jetzt unumbringbare Jude und sein zu gewinnender Kopf Franz Stelzhamers Judenessay.
39 Quoted Ibid. Self-translated.
40 https://www.maiz.at/en/project/maiz-kultur/volksgarten-rejection-dream-spot (accessed 9 January 2023).
41 Upper Austrian state anthem, self-translated; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XM0whBAn_M (accessed 21 November 2023).
42 As the final part of the intervention “From Rejection to Dream Spot” by maiz and “sounding Linz”, they put a new description as a short term intervention on the monument that stated that many of Stelzhammer's texts were shaped by racist and antisemitic stereotypes. This intervention was “inviting to a conversation on the context and realities of the park”. https://www.maiz.at/en/project/maiz-kultur/volksgarten-rejection-dream-spot (accessed 9 January 2024).
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Karin Schneider
Karin Schneider is currently the Head of Education of the Museums of the City of Linz (Lentos Art Museum and Nordico City Museum) and teaches art and museum education methods at the University of Art and Design, Linz. From 2020 to 2022, she, together with Wolfgang Schmutz and Paul Salmons, co-coordinator of the EU funding-based project “MemAct!” From 2007 to 2023, she has been involved in art-based and action research projects on the politics of history and memory, and on educational methods in museums and of difficult heritages at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Zurich University of the Arts. From 2000 to 2007 she held the staff position for art education at the Museum of Modern Art (mumok) Vienna.