From June 2020, public interventions will complement the project Museum of the History of the Nordwestbahnhof in the form of fictitious subdivisions: By means of a two-part intervention in the station area, the Department of Urban History points to a paradox culminating at this location with regard to the history of Vienna's Jews. The Department for Community Outreach links the two sections in the project "Wien. Fisch Story(s)", the Department for Community Outreach links the urban development area historically, thematically and geographically with "fish relevant" places in Vienna through a series of performative city walks.

Since summer 2015, Tracing Spaces has been operating a project space at the Nordwestbahnhof, the last inner-city logistics hub in Vienna. Embedded in the social milieu of the logistics landscape, a multi-layered multimedia cartography of the migration and mobility experiences of actors working here has been and is being successively created.

1. Department for Community Outreach - Fish Story
with Theresa Hattinger (TheHat) and Matthäus Bär

In an exhibition at Vienna's Nordwest Railway Station and in performative excursions, different means of transport, multi-confessional processional equipment and pop-up exhibitions will be used to comment on and question various fish-relevant "places" of the City of Vienna: the former habitats of Viennese fish in the Danube Canal and Danube, fishing districts and clubs, historical fish markets, fish factories, fish traders and fish restaurants, and finally also ice-cooled wholesale warehouses and fish cemeteries on the city's peripheries. In this way, aspects of the structural, social and cultural transformation of the city are reflected on the basis of places where fish is caught, traded and processed.
With guest contributions by artists, scientists and experts of everyday life.

MUSEUM Nordwestbahnhof

Nordwestbahnstraße 16 A, 1200 Wien (former bus terminal control center)

Open until 22nd November, 2020

The exhibition and interventions are available for free after opening.

Opening Hours and Guided Tours: Thursdays and Fridays 3 to 7 pm and by arrangement by office@tracingspaces.net or+43 699 12358298

Reachability: U6 (Dresdnerstraße); Tram 5 (Rauscherstraße); Bus 5A (Brigittagasse)

Events

Limited number of participants - binding registration (except for the opening of the exhibition) required! Registration under: office@tracingspaces.net or +43 699 12358298

2. Department of Urban History - Jewish History on Site

Exhibitions and interventions will take place starting August.

In a multi-part intervention on the edge of the Nordwestbahnhof site, a paradox of the history of Viennese Jews culminating at this location will be pointed out: For the shooting of the cinema film "The City without Jews", the Kopfbahnhofsgebäude was adapted as a film studio and set in 1924 to film the fictional deportation of Viennese Jews. However, the deportation in this film was still intended to be temporary. At the end of the film, the Viennese Jews are allowed to return to their city unharmed.

Only a few years later, after the Anschluss with Nazi Germany in 1938, the same station hall became the site of the racist Nazi propaganda exhibition "The Eternal Jew". This could have been shown at a more prominent location in a more central location. But perfidiously, a hall in the second district was deliberately chosen for this purpose. This district had the highest population density of Jews at the time. Visitors who wanted or had to see the exhibition travelled by tram to this district and, after the exhibition's devastating effect, left again through the same district - with a view to the population group which, in both film and Nazi propaganda, was held responsible for all the evils.

The project also deals with the history of several phases of storage and transport of the belongings and goods of Jews who fled from 1938 onwards, with reference to the railway station (e.g. via Hamburg to the USA and in the 1970s from Russia via Vienna to Israel).