ISSN: 1559-4866 • May 2021 InTHE NEWSLEttTouchER OF THE AMERICan FRIENDS OF THE JEWISH MUSEUM HOHENEMS, INC. Letter from the President TIMOTHY L. HANFORD Dear Friends and Supporters of AFJMH: am pleased to share this Spring newsletter with you. With the expanding availability of Ivaccines for COVID-19, there is reason for optimism, but that must be tempered because www.afjmh.org the pandemic is still with us. It will be a while Stephan Rollin before the Jewish Museum Hohenems can again welcome a full complement of visitors but, as Founder you will see, the museum is using ingenuity to Timothy L. Hanford continue to fulfill its mission. President Museum Director Hanno Loewy tells us in this issue about the continuing impact of the Claude Rollin, Esq. pandemic on the Jewish Museum Hohenems and the surprisingly robust activities the Museum Vice-President has nonetheless undertaken. Like museums worldwide, the Jewish Museum Hohenems has experienced a significant drop in revenues and will need our continued support. Uri Taenzer, Esq. Secretary-Treasurer This year we are celebrating the Museum’s 30th anniversary and doing our best to give it a strong push towards a 40th and beyond. We are also celebrating the 150th birthday of Rabbi Trustees Aron Tänzer, one of whose many accomplishments was the genealogical research that allows many Hohenems descendants to know exactly how they may be cousins. Dr. Robert Amler As you are no doubt aware, the mission of the AFJMH is to provide additional financial Nicole M. Angiel support for the Jewish Museum Hohenems. The AFJMH also provides financial assistance Andy Barth for maintaining the Hohenems Jewish Cemetery. Your support for the Museum’s exhibitions, Ronald Bernell its publications, its research, and its events remains indispensable. The pandemic has created Francesca Brunner-Kennedy economic uncertainty for many Americans, but if you are able, I want to encourage you Nadia Follman to continue your financial support. Hon. Susan Shimer The AFJMH is proud to have so many American Hohenems descendants as members. I will David Taenzer single out one such descendant, my father, Lloyd Hanford, who left us in November—he Monica Wollner attended the 2008 descendants’ reunion with me and hoped that his grandchildren and great- grandchildren would enjoy future such reunions. We are always pleased to welcome more In Touch Editors: members to the AFJMH! Please send a note your siblings and offspring and cousins urging Jennifer Shimer Piper them to take a look at the AFJMH website (www.AFJMH.org) and consider joining AFJMH. Jessica Piper I want to take this opportunity to extend continued best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, Please send your and productive 2021. Your past generosity to AFJMH is deeply appreciated. In Touch articles to: Sincerely, [email protected] Tim Hanford President Visit us on the web: SPEND A SUMMER WITH THE JEWISH MUSEUM HOHENEMS Jewish Museum Hohenems: The AFJMH is sponsoring an internship with the Jewish Museum Hohenems for the summer www.jm-hohenems.at of 2022. This internship, open to a descendant who is enrolled in college as of the fall of American Friends of the 2021, is an opportunity to gain in depth appreciation and enjoy life in the former Jewish Jewish Museum Hohenems: community while assisting the museum’s director and staff in a variety of projects. Speaking www.afjmh.org German is helpful, but not required. The only requirements are an interest in working in a new environment and enthusiasm for learning about history and culture. Further information regarding the terms and application process may be found on AFJMH’s website. InTouch May 2021 May 2021 A Letter from the Director to Friends DR. HANNO LOEWY Dear friends of the Jewish Museum! are all still suffering from the effects of the The museum has responded to these challenges by Covid-19 pandemic. Only gradually can we rescheduling its exhibition programs. Our exhibition “End We see light at the end of the tunnel, and the of the Contemporary?” was extended into August, and the effects will occupy us for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, subsequent exhibition “The Last Europeans” did not open the Museum is at work: We are taking care of our collections until October 2020. and publications, preparing exhibitions for the future, and We were also able to reach interested people in our outreach cooperating with other museums on existential questions of programs and—at least in the summer—through outdoor our further development as cultural institutions. programs in the Jewish Quarter and on the escape routes at This spring, the Jewish Museum will be 30 years old. We are the border. celebrating the occasion with the third issue of our museum We also took the pandemic as a chance to learn how to newspaper, and with an online event by our Friends on May reach out and to connect across borders. Many of our events 26, 2021. Whether we will be able to hold a public celebration since the summer of 2020 have taken place online, bringing in the summer remains to be seen. together people to discuss what matters today, between New On March 13, 2020, the Museum had to close and could not York and Jerusalem, Ramallah and Zurich, Vienna, Berlin and reopen until June 1, with severe restrictions. We locked down naturally: Hohenems and our immediate environment. again from November 3 to December 7, and a third time Many donations and also political programs to financially beginning December 24. The museum has since reopened but support the economy and cultural institutions helped with greatly reduced access for visitors. compensate for the dramatic loss of revenue. However, our Since March 2020, only very occasional school groups have financial situation will remain precarious as long as it is not been able to participate in our outreach programs. Guided foreseeable when normal operations will be possible again. tours and outdoor programs with adult groups have likewise We are very grateful for the generous help we have received only been possible in limited numbers. Numerous events, this year. We know that help is needed in many places. We are including the symposium “The Future of Testimony,” the all the more moved by the manifold solidarity in these difficult cultural festival “Emsiana,” and the “European Summer times. Let us continue to look after one another. University for Jewish Studies” had to be canceled. Naturally, our visitor numbers have also been cut by more With Love from Hohenems, than half during this time. We were encouraged last summer Hanno Loewy to see many people from the region visit us at a time when hardly anyone came to us across the borders. Film about the Reunion now in English and Spanish Film about the Reunion now in English and Spanish Bernd Seidel’s film about the Reunion 2017—“Who am I”—is now available online with English and Spanish subtitles, thanks to Julius Peltz and Karla Galindo-Barth (Hirschfeld). You find the film on our website on:https://www.jm-hohenems.at/en/descendants/descendants-reunion-2017 — 2 — InTouch May 2021 May 2021 News from the Museum: Publications: Hannes Sulzenbacher: The Brunner Family. A European-Jewish History. Hohenems-Trieste-Vienna espite a modest lineage as butchers and cattle dealers to the museum: the estate of Carlo Alberto Brunner, consisting in Hohenems, the Jewish Brunner family experienced of letters and documents, memorabilia, and everyday objects Da steep social and cultural rise: at the beginning of from many generations of the Brunner family. They provide the 19th century, almost an entire generation left Vorarlberg a glimpse into 300 years of Jewish family history and a to seek their fortune elsewhere. Their destination was the European era that ended in war and destruction. then-Austrian port city of Trieste, whose rapid development German edition: as a Habsburg Mediterranean metropolis also brought the Hannes Sulzenbacher: Die Familie Brunner. Eine europäisch- Brunners a period of splendor. Economic migrants became jüdische Familie. Hohenems-Triest-Wien. Bucher Verlag, economic magnates, and wholesalers eventually became Hohenems 2021, 240 pages, 95 illustrations, 19,80 €. upper-class citizens. English edition: The history of large parts of Europe is reflected in a family that Hannes Sulzenbacher: The soon lived scattered across the continent and yet remained Brunner Family. A European- in close contact with each other and with Hohenems. With Jewish History. Hohenems- the development of Europe into a continent of nationalism Trieste-Vienna. Bucher and mutual hatred, with the devastation of two world wars Verlag, Hohenems 2021, and the expulsion and annihilation of the European Jews, the 240 pages, 95 illustrations, heyday of the Brunner family also ended. Parts of the family 29,80 €. (This is the were scattered all over the world. But members of the family German edition together still meet regularly, somewhere on the globe, or in Hohenems. with a separate text The starting point for this book is the exhibition “The Last volume in English) Europeans. Jewish Perspectives on the Crises of an Idea” at the Jewish Museum Hohenems-and an extensive permanent loan Old Liberties of Hohenems, No. 3 coming soon... The new newspaper of the Jewish Museum Hohenems will be published in June 2021, with articles on the “last Europeans” and on the anniversary of the 30th anniversary of the Jewish Museum. The newspaper will be sent to all descendants for free, with additional copies available for shipping costs and a voluntary donation. — 3 — InTouch May 2021 May 2021 News from the Museum: Exhibitions Hanno Lowey by provided Photos End of Testimony? ur joint exhibition with the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, and the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future“ (EVZ) in Germany Owill now travel on.