Imagining Loss

Abstract

The images presented are part of Karen Werner’s 2017 and 2018 public sound installation diptych, Haus, which is about the building where three generations of her maternal family lived before the Nazi occupation of Vienna. Werner’s art is a contemplation of and an attempt at coming to terms with the loss and violence brought on by the Holocaust. The text by Serap A. Kayatekin provides commentary on the images while making connections between the histories of genocide and ethnic cleansing, of displacement, and of the loss of homes elsewhere in the world.

Key Words:

• Genocide
• Holocaust
• Home
• Loss
• Memory

Notes

1 Haus, parts 1 and 2, was originally created as a sound installation accompanied by these images in a public passageway in the center of Vienna. The images are a collaboration between Werner and curator/photographer Georg Weckwerth and graphic designer Astrid Seme. Haus, part 1, was exhibited December 2017-February 2018 with seven of the images; Haus, part 2, was exhibited February-March 2018 with another set of seven images. (Communication with the artist).

2 Personal communication with the artist.

3 The artist indicated that in the final poster version she has removed the word “end,” replacing it with an ellipsis.

4 A. Sutzkever, “Gather Me In,” in Selected Poetry and Prose, trans. B. and B. Harshav (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991), 293.

5 The description is inspired by the artist’s explanation.

6 The lyrics of this Greek song are by Kostas Georgousopoulos. Translation is by Serap Kayatekin. She would like to thank Makis Kappos and George Souvlis for the help.

7 The persecution of the Greek population of Aïvali started in the early twentieth century. In several waves, the city, as well as the rest of the late Ottoman lands, became part of the “ethnic cleansing” in which the Greek population was deported into the interior. The properties of the Greek population were confiscated and looted. In 1923, an agreement was signed between Greece and Turkey whereby the remaining Greeks living in Asia Minor and Muslims in Greece were forcibly removed from their homelands and sent away.

8 N. Rusinian, “Cilicia,” in The Heritage of Armenian Literature, Volume III: From the Eighteenth Century to Modern Times, ed. and trans. A. J. Hacikyan, G. Basmajian, E. S. Franchuk, and N. Ouzounian (Detroit: Wayne State University, 2005), 227–8. Many thanks to G. M. Goshgarian for finding this translation.