JOURNAL #09
– January 2018 Dialogue Issue – Objects, Paths, Stories –
“…but we brought it back…”: Objects, Paths, Stories An oral histories project of the Casa de lângă Sinagoga Objects, even the most mundane, hold stories. Stories of the owner, the buyer, the finder, the giver, the receiver, the carver, the painter, or the one who lost it or was forced to leave it. Our call to Mediașers, both current day residents and those with roots in Mediaș, was to consider an object, any object, which they or their family had brought with them to Mediaș or taken with them out of Mediaș, when they emigrated. In this way we expected to collect stories— stories of families, journeys, people—all of whom were connected to Mediaș in some way. We chose to work with tangible objects knowing that “material things have the potential to invoke […] abstract concepts” ( atcher Ulrich et al. 2015, 171) such as love and loss. What we did not expect were certain over-lappings of stories that arose, the many common themes and parallels. Music or recordings played a significant role in many of the stories; time a er time we exchanged notes on interviews and realized that again music was in some way one of the “objects”. Books and libraries were mentioned repeatedly. Grandparents and their stories were passed down and repeated to us by grandchildren. And movement—a constant moving to and fro, away and back, a coming and going—punctuates every story presented here. We collected more than just these eight stories. Choosing only eight to present was perhaps the most difficult aspect of the project because in the end, everyone’s story was fascinating: the Protestant female pastor whose theology class was the first to ordain three women at once; the woman who composed a volume of poetry around objects le in her parents’ house following their death; the dentist from Cluj, with her grandfather’s wooden cross symbolizing life values; the man who still plays on the violin of his grandfather, who Thatcher Ulrich, Laurel, Ivan Gaskell, Sara J. Schechner, Sarah Anne Carter. 2015. Tangible Things: Making History through Objects. New York : Oxford University Press.
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{ introduction } was a folk musician, playing for weddings, baptisms and other celebrations; the woman whose grandfather sent a letter written on a piece of bark from a prisoner-of-war camp. In her book Tangible ings: Making History through Objects, scholar Laurel atcher Ulrich reminds us that, “It is not just the things that matter. Rather, it is the people they allow us to remember, touch, and meet. Tangible things open doors to human feelings, emotions, and states of being that would otherwise disappear with their owners” (ibidem). Ultimately, the project was not about things, but about capturing, recording and remembering these ephemeral sentiments, episodes, impressions. In the end, we selected stories that represent the historic diversity of the residents of Mediaș but also remind us that still today the town is in flux: new people arrive, while others go. Of course, it was very important to us to also include Jewish stories, in a place where the Jewish historical presence and role in the life of the town is otherwise so absent and invisible. ese stories invoke the atmosphere of a different time and remind us of how things once were, when Margit Fein was known throughout the town for her mezzosoprano voice and asked by the Catholic church to sing, when Sarah Mindl Citron’s garden, in a courtyard off the main square, was blossoming and verdant. Finally, at the end of the exhibition we present several objects from our own spaces, items we selected from our archives and this house, where the community had its offices, held meetings and celebrated weddings, and various employees lived over the years. ese objects have stories, too. Only we don’t know them. We encourage you to imagine what they might be. — Julie Dawson
The TRACES Journal includes 9 issues, available for free download at www.traces.polimi.it/journal
The following texts are excerpts from the oral histories exhibition “...but we brought it back...” : Objects, Paths, Stories which opened at the end of August 2018 at the Casa de lângă Sinagoga in Mediaș. In the exhibition, listening stations were created where the visitor can listen to the interview in its original language or read the translation, which were provided in German, Hungarian, Romanian, and English.
All artworks by Răzvan Anton.
Lutz Connert Interview by: Julie Dawson birthplace: Mediaș current residence: Mediaș birth year: 1944 object: Candlestick interview length: 6:37 …Und das ist ein Erlebnis was ich jedem wünschte: Wenn man ohne Belastung an dem Ort wo man herkommt, [...] da zurückkehrt... My name is Lutz Connert, I was born in Mediaș, Romania. I brought a silver candlestick, it is an heirloom from my aunt. When I emigrated, my aunt remained for the time being, and I couldn’t take it with me at once […] rather I could only take a suitcase with clothes. And then we were here visiting and my aunt said, she wanted to give me this candlestick as a present. […] We smuggled it over the border, he really did inspect the suitcase, the customs officer, but my wife had packed it so well that that he didn’t find it. She always said I was her favorite nephew […] she didn’t want this silver candlestick to stay in Romania because this exodus could be foreseen… and now, despite that, it is back here a er all. Maybe there are also people who don’t put much value anymore on their past or their family, but I understand very well what it means to be le with nothing, you have to flee… I also don’t understand the people who have no sympathy for the refugees all over the world today. Yes, you can imagine, if you know that now you’re emigrating, leaving forever—at that time of course no one believed there would be a return—what do you take with you? And because you were hardly allowed to take anything at all. You have to imagine that the people took the toothpaste tubes and stuck them with a needle to see if there was any gold or anything inside. So you think, ok, I’ll take a few clothes with me so that I don’t have to buy something right away. […] Maybe that is why I am so attached to the few things that I have, because for me that is extremely important—to hold up the legacy of your fathers and grandfathers. […]
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And that is an experience that I would wish for everyone: to return, unencumbered, to that place where you are from, from which due to whatever circumstances you had to leave ... be it from Warsaw to Jerusalem, or who knows, from Transylvania to Germany or from Syria to who knows where ... when you have the opportunity and the conditions are restored ... and you can return to that place... everyone should have that possibility because only then can you really be—there is a nice phrase in Romanian cu sufletul împăcat (that the soul again) how would you translate that—that you are at peace with yourself, or with your fate or with whatever has happened.
Iulia Batioha Interview by: Alexandra Toma birth place: Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia residence: Mediaș birth year: 1987 object: Zdob și Zdub CD interview length: 5:02 …și m-am întâlnit cu doi băieți care mă întrebau « de ce faci tu poze la lanuri de porumb? La grâu? la ceva » și eu ziceam « cum? - e frumos » și ei zic « nu-i adevărat! Toată frumusețea începe după Ploiești » ... Iulia Batioha. at is a more complex question ... where I’m from, because normally I say I’m from Ukraine but I wasn’t born in Ukraine. I was born in Russia, but the other part of Russia, that is in the east, in Asia. When I was three years old my parents moved to Ukraine and I spent my entire childhood in Ukraine. In Charkov, it is a city in eastern Ukraine. I arrived in Mediaș a er a quite a few journeys. I brought the cover of a CD by Zdob și Zdub with their autographs. I initially started going to Bessarabia to learn Romanian. I started learning Romanian in order to understand music, to understand a few pieces. […] I liked [Zdob și Zdub] so much and my curiosity was aroused because they had melodies like in Russian, which I knew […] and I started to be curious whether those people were singing the same things they were singing in
Russian or whether it was something else. I started to translate a song, the one I played for you earlier Doina haiducului […] and of course, I didn’t understand anything! Except for the last two phrases. When I got to those two phrases and I have no idea what miracle allowed me to translate them and to understand what it was about, then I knew, I had to keep going. ey were Liberă e inima mea, liber e sufletul meu (my heart is free, my soul is free). […] When I saw Bucharest I said, “Seriously? is is why I learned Romanian?” But I was lucky and a er three or four days in Bucharest I went to Brașov. And I met two guys who asked me, “Why are you taking photos of the corn fields? e wheat? Of whatever” and I said, “What do you mean, it’s pretty,” and they said, “ at’s not true! Everything pretty starts a er Ploiești.” And a er the Prahova valley started and it was so beautiful there, that is when I understood, this is why I learned Romanian and came to Romania. I stayed about three years in Bucharest. I finished my Masters, I started working but I still had the feeling that Bucharest wasn’t the city that I liked. My soul wasn’t at peace. […] And when we met, then we decided, we should get married and move and that is how I ended up in Mediaș.
Traian Căldărar Interview by Alexandra Toma birthplace: Mediaș residence: Brateiu birth year: 1978 object: Wagon interview length: 7:00 ...Dar în căruțe ei mergeau pe sate și le umpleau. Uneori vindeau fără bani, dar aduceau bucate de la oameni. Cucuruz, făină, tot ce le trebuia și umpleau căruța cu din astea și veneau acasă și țineau animalele și trăiau... Căldărar Traian. I was born in Mediaș.
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I lived in the village of Brateiu. e most suitable thing that I have is an old wagon. It is what is le now, what could be le from my grandparents, who were deported during the period of ’42. e wagon–they, the moment that the soldiers arrived then, during that period, it caught them by surprise and they told them “Now’s the time and you have to leave”. ey didn’t tell them where and why they had to go, no one explained to them why, they could barely taken anything with them, only some who still had time could grab a few things. ey began to spread the word. And they put their tents and clothes into the wagons, those who had one, and they le towards Transnistria. […] It was something inexplicable. It is impossible to express in words what they lived through in that period. […] But a er they got out [of Transnistria], by chance they remembered that they had le something which they could use again. So they went and sure enough, they found it. And somehow, somehow, they managed to get it back. […] My father worked for many years on a farm. And it was a collective one, at that time. He worked a lot for the state, because that is how it was back then. With time my father began to work as I do. And at the age of 14-15 years, 16 years, he learned from others, from my grandparents, from [other] people. […] My father began working and here and there he made a copper still, and he had to do it secretly, and he sold it and went to the villages to the Saxons. What I want to say is they knew how to live. Working, keeping pigs, raising horses and cows, that was their hobby. To be industrious and to work and to have animals. e courtyards were full. But in their wagons they went to the villages and filled them up. Sometimes they would barter, receiving things instead of money. Cornmeal, flour, everything that you need, and they would fill the wagon with that and come home and take care of the animals and live. Up until today. Well, now, some things have changed. ese are the times today. You can’t anymore, because pure and simple, they don’t let you go to Mediaș in a wagon. It is forbidden, but some people still have horses, wagons, still ... well, no one is used to going to the villages anymore. Sometimes when I think, when I remember things connected to my grandparents, how they would tell stories, you know–it was a different life. And it seems like it was nicer than today. Today, you never have time anymore. And look, nevertheless, God did help many Gypsies1. Because if it had been the way that Hitler and Antonescu wanted, to kill all the Gypsies and kill all
1. Traian uses the words Roma and Gypsy interchangeably and here used the word Gypsy.
the Jews, God wasn’t like that. at is, he didn’t allow exactly what they wanted. And despite it all, the Jews and and Gypsies survived. And look, from generation to generation we got to today. And God helped some of them to escape. And we were born and they told us their stories and now we tell others about them and ... that is life.
Bogdan Prisecaru Interview by: Alexandra Toma birthplace: Iași residence: Mediaș birth year: 1981 object: Photo of grandmother and vinyl records with stories interview length: 3:36 ...era iubită. Adică mergeai cu bunica prin Iași dintr-un capăt în altul, dura, nu cred că îți ajungea o zi că cineva o oprea, hai să te servesc cu ceva... My name is Prisecaru Bogdan Ioan and I was born in Iași. In 2018 it seemed to me that the most interesting place was the town of Mediaș. […] I felt that the people here were warm. People who…are helpful and not only if you know them. I was here several times, my wife had never been here. And she was received with the same warmth, not because they knew me. And we two, she and I, in just four or five months we’ve built bridges and made connections, with neighbors, with people in general, even at the stores. […] e entire Iași elite, the doctors, the teachers, they all checked out at least one book from my grandmother on their way to becoming people of influence in Iași... she was beloved. at is, if you would walk with my grandmother from one end of Iași to the other, it would take a while, I don’t think you could do it in a day because someone would always be stopping her, [to say] come let me serve you something! I experienced the ‘90s when that wave of pseodo-liberty came, everybody thought now they’re free and a few years later they realized they weren’t. And it was very hard then to find a refuge, a quiet place, especially as a child.
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I was lucky to have my grandmother who protected and cared for me where she could. e vinyl records are those special moments of childhood, when I was little. ere are two stories David Copperfield, that one is a bit like my life, there are some things in common. It’s a story, that is both stories that I listen to now as an adult—they don’t make me cry or depressed or fall into a state of nostalgia—you put the needle on the vinyl, hear the crackling sound and you relax, like at the theater if it is a good piece, you can separate completely. It is a ficticious home—like a shell, like the warm voice of my grandmother. e other story is by Ion Pas, it’s Familia Chiț-Chiț. If the one from Charles Dickens was, as I said, about the sentimentality of home, I put it on, I contemplate, I let myself be carried off by a story, then Familia Chiț-Chiț lets you relax.
Tamar Langbeheim Interview by: Julie Dawson birthplace: Tel-Aviv residence: Jerusalem birth year: 1951 object: Photograph interview length: 6:25 … und der Garten den man dort heute noch sieht, den hat meine Urgrossmutter, Sarah Mindl, gepflegt, sie hatte eine grüne Hand, so hat man von ihr gesprochen... Tamar Berlovitz, maiden name Berlovitz, married with mazl2, Langbeheim. My mother, Nomi Leitner was born in Zurich but grew up in Mediaș. My grandfather, Julius Leitner, who moved from Piešťany, Slovakia to Zurich when he was about twenty years old, was already a rather older bachelor. He was very good friends with Mr. Rabbi Kornfein, the rabbi of Zurich, who proposed a shidduch3 for him, so that he would finally take the next step [in life].
2. Hebrew for good luck, that is happily married. 3. A Jewish arranged marriage.
He knew the Citron family in Mediaș and he knew about Mathilde… […] And so that is how they came, Mathilde came, to Zurich. My mother was born there in 1922. And then in 1924 they got the message that Mathilde’s father, Philipp Feivel Nehamiah Citron, had died. He was the founder and businessman, the director, of the large company, the leather company, the leather factory. And they were asked whether they could please come back and Mathilde wanted very much to return to her large extended family, to her mother. And Julius gave in and so they came to Mediaș. And it got worse and worse in Medias and my grandfather Julius was punched and threatened. And then he said: “We have to leave, we are Swiss citizens, I have the help of the Swiss Embassy.” And so he managed it—it took quite a long time until they received the permits. He was able to bring the entire family out in 1943, May of 1943. My parents then emigrated to Israel in 1951. We lived for four and a half years in Israel, then the Swiss company [for which my father worked] called him back. He thought about it and looked around, but in the end he decided that we would go back to Zurich. e address where Sarah Mindl lived […] is Ferdinand Regele 31. You go through the passageway to the back and the garden, which you can still see today, my great-grandmother Sarah Mindl tended that—she had a green thumb, that is what people said about her. her Twenty-two years ago we—my siblings and my parents—we were here. […] I can show you a few photos. at is the moment at which we looked down on Medias [from the hill above] for the first time and we are asking my mother: “Nu, what do you feel, now that you are seeing your home town again? And then first she said: “I don‘t feel anything. I am simply a cold person.” And then we all laughed. Of course she felt something but she didn’t know how to express it.
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Edith Hajnalka Toth Interview by: Julie Dawson birthplace: Sighișoara residence: Mediaș birth year: 1968 object: Flute interview length: 5:00 … schon als ich in die Kirche reinkam, hatte ich das Gefühl, das ist mein Zuhause... My name is Edith Hajnalka Toth and I was born in Sighișoara. Edith Hajnalka—that is a German and a Hungarian name because my mother is Transylvanian Saxon and my father is Hungarian and all my siblings have both a German and a Hungarian name. It is simply an instrument, it is my flute, which has more or less accompanied me throughout my life and is a kind of home for me, no matter where I may find myself in the world. […] First I was in Făgăraș as the organist there. And then a er the Fall [of communism] I could study in Dresden and a er my studies I went to Făgăraș and Codlea. Yes, and then I was in Codlea for two years and at some point came the inquiry—Mediaș is waiting for you, don’t you want to come to Mediaș? I had an invitation to play for the church services and hold a choir rehearsal and then the presbytery, the church leaders, invited me [to a discussion] and asked me whether I could imagine moving to Mediaș. And I have to say, I was completely thrilled. Already when I entered the church, I had the feeling, this is my home. And then I arrived here, in September, the middle of September and at the end of September I found out that I was pregnant. e results came–oops! And then it wasn’t a problem at all, really not a problem whatsoever. ey had so much tolerance and I could take care of my child, I really only had to play for the services and hold choir rehearsals. Really, no one reproached me for being alone with a child. On the contrary, there were three women, they got together and said—once a week you’ll come to us to eat, we’ll cook for you.
[…] Rafael plays piano and his present to me was: he brought two books for piano and flute from Switzerland, a little bit of pop music, so that we can play together. And in the meantime we have done that a lot. At the moment a favorite piece for Rafael and me is Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel it is a quiet, gentle piece. We also played it at my mother’s funeral.
Erzsébet Wenzel-Gazdag Interview by: Alexandra Toma birth place: Mediaș residence: Mediaș birth year: 1986 object: Chandelier interview length: 4:34 …Ez a csillár nagy mértékben meghatározta a gyerekkoromat: átvészelte a bombázást, a háborút, nehogy mi – a nővérem meg én – törjük el vagy tegyük tönkre… My name is Erzsébet Wenzel-Gazdag and I was born in Mediaș on November 11th, 1986. I brought the photograph of a crystal chandelier, it is an heirloom of my family. My father was born in Mediaș, my mother is from Zetea from the Szekely region. My father’s parents, my grandparents, moved to Mediaș in 1945 and brought this chandelier with them at that time. At one point [my grandparents] lived in Cluj, because my grandfather was studying medicine there in order to become a dentist and then from 1938 to 1940 he worked for the so-called flotilla from Someșeni. at was part of the air-force of the Romanian army. Due to the political upheavals of 1940 this troop had to pull out of Cluj and my grandparents moved to Oradea. is
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chandelier hung in the apartment they lived in a er 1940. When the Americans bombed Oradea in 1944 their house was also hit. Supposedly nothing survived—except for this chandelier, which hung on a collapsed beam. ey took it with them. […] In the spring, at the first possible opportunity, my grandparents returned to Oradea, but even though my grandparents’ parents lived there, they found neither work nor a place to live and so they tried their luck with relatives in Cluj, but also there they found no place to stay. So then they began to inquire about to find out where the troop of the Romanian army had ended up, where my grandfather had worked as a dentist. And they found out that it was stationed in Mediaș and had its headquarters at the aviation school. And so they came to Mediaș in 1945. My grandfather applied with the respective troop and was accepted, that is, he was employed again. When they received an apartment in Mediaș they brought this chandelier there, and there it hangs today, at the same spot in Strada Honterus. is chandelier made a powerful impression on my childhood: it had survived bombings, the war. We, my sister and I, were always to be very careful not to break it or damage it in any other way. And now that I have my own three-year old son, the whole thing is repeated– when he plays beneath the chandelier we try to protect it as much as we can. I never knew [my grandfather]. He died a year before I was born but I have some recordings of him, given to me once by a relative.
Janet Leuchter Interview by: Julie Dawson birthplace: Atlantic City, nj current residence: New York City birth year: 1952 object: Postcard of Wine-garden with grandmother and great-aunt as children interview length: 6:11 … You know my great-grandmother Margit was a singer, she was a classical singer, she was largely untrained in her youth but she was renowned in Mediaș for her beautiful mezzo voice… My name is Janet Leuchter. I live in New York City and I was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It’s a photo of the wine garden attached to the restaurant that was owned by our great-great grandfather Josef Weiss, in Mediaș. In the picture of the garden are a number of guests and my grandmother Olga and her younger sister Lily and they were approximately ages five and two or six and three. at photo is around 1910. Margit, who was my great-grandmother, was born in Mediaș in 1885. [Margit’s father] Josef was the only one who considered himself orthodox or religious. e rest of them did not. Teresz kept a kosher home and so forth really for her husband. She was self-educated in a western sense from her youth. […] eir daughter Margit was not religious, at least not in her adult life. Her husband Marton Fein did not grow up in Mediaș, he grew up in Szeged. He met her when his unit, he was in a cavalry unit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and they were stationed for a while in Mediaș. He saw her or met her, was very attracted to her and serenaded her– this was the family story–serenaded her at her window and played some sort of string instrument and sang to her. ey were married in Mediaș. Marton was a freethinker, internationalist, quite secular, in his approach to life. But they did have a strong Jewish identity, they certainly identified as Jews. You know my great-grandmother Margit was a singer, she was a classical singer, she was largely untrained in her youth but she was renowned in Mediaș for her beautiful mezzo voice. […] She was asked by the local Catholic priest—her father was asked—by the local priest, whether she could sing in the church which he allowed her to do. [Margit and Marton] arrived in the us on this visit in 1914 taking with them
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their oldest daughter Olga, my grandmother. World War I broke out and they couldn’t get back. […] Not only were they, Josef and Teresz back in Mediaș, but Margit and Marton had le their two younger daughters with them in 1914 because nobody had expected that they would be stranded, nobody expected the war to break out. So the two younger sisters who were Lily and Magda, were le with them and Magda died in the influenza epidemic, which was world-wide, the Spanish Flu, in 1918. And also the other person who was in that family who got le behind was Teresz’ father Josef Schwarz, who had come to live with them from Humenné. He along with Magda, are buried in the Mediaș Jewish cemetery.
Postcard. Janet Leuchter, private collection.
Absence as Heritage (Mediaș, Romania) is one of the five Creative Co-Productions developed within the eu-funded research project traces – Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritages with the Arts. The project activities focus on exploring the Jewish and multicultural heritage and character of the town and take place at the Casa de lângă Sinagoga (house next to the synagogue) in Mediaș, Transylvania. ccp1 members are: Răzvan Anton (visual artist and lecturer at Cluj University of Art and Design, member of the Paintbrush Factory artist collective in Cluj, Romania); Julie Dawson (historian and researcher for Leo Baeck Institute, doctoral studies at Institute for Contemporary History of the University of Vienna); Alexandra Toma (project manager and local community liaison at the Casa de lângă Sinagoga cultural centre in Mediaș).
tives focusing on practices, innovative approaches and experimental research actions. ree issues per year: ‘Snapshots’, with graphic-based contributions raising questions and investigating practices; ‘Dialogues’, in which the topic unfolds through a semi-structured interview; and ‘Insights’, that expands the field of inquiry by means of theoretical and empirical critical thoughts.
Scientific Responsible Prof. Luca Basso Peressut Department of Architecture and Urban Studies Politecnico di Milano Editor-in-Chief Francesca Lanz Editorial Board Tal Adler, Julie Dawson, Marion Hamm, John Harries, Martin Krenn, Erica Lehrer, Sharon Macdonald, Suzana Milevska, Aisling O’Beirn, Alenka Pirman, Regina Römhild, Arnd Schneider, Karin Schneider, Klaus Schönberger, Roma Sendyka Editorial Staff Cristina F. Colombo Jacopo Leveratto Graphic Design Zetalab – Milano Contacts Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 26 20133 Milano – Italy www.traces.polimi.it infoTRACES@polimi.it
TRACES Journal ensues from the research project Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritages with the Arts. From Intervention to Co-Production, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 693857. For further information please visit www.tracesproject.eu The views expressed here are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
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traces is an independent quarterly peer-reviewed, nonprofit journal that brings together original contributions to explore emerging issues in the field of heritage and museum studies. Selected research papers published in a sixteen-page, custom-designed, off-set print, limited edition. Each issue investigates a specific topic from different perspec-