To mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, UNIS Vienna organized an opening event for the exhibit "Vienna's Conscience-- Close-Ups and Conversations after Hitler", based on the book with the same title. Staff members, NGOs, media, the diplomatic community, as well as schools and universities were invited to attend the event which took place in the Rotunda of the VIC on 27 January 2009 at 10:30 a.m..
After a few words of welcome by UNIS Vienna Deputy Director Christian Strohmann in which he also contextualized the day in the current difficult situation in the Middle East, Amb. Ferdinand Trauttmansdorff, Chair of the International Task Force for Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research gave a brief address in which he recounted his personal experience and feelings in dealing with the memories of Austria's Nazi past, as well as explaining about the role of the Task Force and the Stockholm Declaration of 2000. The message of the Secretary-General was read out by David Dindi, Student Council President of the Vienna International School.
A special introduction in the exhibition was provided by Richard Winter's widow, Susan Winter Balk, who co-authored the book and had travelled to Vienna from the United States specifically for this occasion. She recounted in a very moving and personal way her late husband's vision and philosophy, stressing that for him it was not important to lay blame on anyone, but to seek answers to difficult questions. She also spoke of her continuing effort to help people come to terms with difficult and traumatic experiences by talking about them and seeking dialogue, in the context of a larger project -- and extension of Richard Winter's exhibit -- which she has embarked upon together with the film-maker Andrew Singer.
Dr. Gregory Weeks of Webster University, co-author of the book, rounded off the event with a brief historical review of the genesis of the Day of Commemoration, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN genocide convention. "If we allow injustices to occur today and fail to remember what happened in the past, it can happen again," he said. "I hope that each of you will do your part in remembering the crimes of the past to help prevent the crimes of the present and future."
The musical framework for the event was provided by the VIC choir and Yehuda Halevi music school, who presented a choral medley, a moving prayer song 'Ani Maamin' performed by tenor Yigal Altshuler, and a harp solo.
The exhibition Vienna's Conscience: Close-ups and Conversations after Hitler is based on a powerful book of the same title by the late Richard Winter, a Viennese Jew who narrowly escaped to America in 1938 but never lost his love for Vienna. When Richard Winter returned to the city 50 years later, he felt from his photographic and verbal encounters with ordinary citizens that the "Anschluss" - the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany still resonated in Vienna.
On 12 March 1938, the Austrian capital welcomed Hitler's Nazis with open arms. The effects were immediate. The city's 180,000 Jews - 10 per cent of its population - soon either escaped or were put in concentration camps...
Winter, with assistance from his wife, the writer Susan Margolis Winter Balk, presents his rare conversations and images from the late 1980ies that depict a collective trauma, still influenced by Hitler's actions and a population's inaction. This snapshot of the attitudinal landscape in 1988 explores the psychological impact of the "Anschluss" through stunning imagery and reflection. This collection of photographs and interviews is not so much a series of in-depth portraits, as a portrait of a city at a specific moment in history: Vienna, Austria in 1988, half a century after its Nazi era.
Only a part of the exhibition was presented on this occasion. There are plans to make the full exhibit a regular feature on the standard guided tour route.
