Posts Tagged ‘Rechnitz Massacre’

‘Killing’ Thyssen Party

On the night of 27 November 2009, Francesca Habsburg (nee Thyssen) gave a party to celebrate her gold medal award by the county of Vienna, for her services to art. To present the niece of Margit Batthyany (nee Thyssen), owner of Rechnitz Castle and hostess of the party in March 1945 during which 180 Hungarian Jews were murdered, with a gold medal, while the investigations are ongoing, is, in my opinion, extremely questionable. But for Francesca to indicate on her invitation that she expects her guests to come ‘DRESSED TO KILL’ is more than a step too far. Let us hope that it is purely the result of her arrogance and thoughtlessness, rather than some insulting gesture to the memory of the victims of the Rechnitz Massacre.

Unfortunately, I cannot voice my reaction as explicitly as I would like, for legal reasons. Interestingly, some of the Austrian commentators were also less than impressed:

23. November 2009, 17:08 (Andrea Schurian, DER STANDARD Printausgabe 24.11.2009)

‘Eine Frage der Ehre (Verdienstvolle Zeichen)

Wien preist seine ehrenwerten Bürgerinnen und Bürger in sieben Abstufungen; da gibt es Halsdekorationen mit und ohne Bruststernen; nur Bruststerne. Oder, in den hinteren Rängen: Medaillen. Das Goldene Verdienstzeichen des Landes Wien ist eine Medaille mit goldenen Strahlen, vergeben für große Verdienste. Danach kommt nur mehr Silber. Alles klar so weit.

Am Donnerstag vergoldet Wien der Kunstmäzenin Francesca Habsburg-Lothringen, née Thyssen- Bornemisza, ihre großen Verdienste mit einer solchen Medaille. Mit ihrer Kunststiftung namens T-B A21 tut sie viel für die Kunst – und die Künstler (mitunter auch die öffentliche Hand) viel für sie und ihren Ruhm.

Kurzum: Alles sehr verdienstvoll. Auch die superlative Goldmedaillen-Party alias DJ-Battle alias Wohltätigkeits-Event: sehr ehrenvoll. Eintritt für einfache Charity-Dancer von 50 Euro aufwärts, einen Zehnpersonentisch gibt es für minimum 1000 Mäuse. Klamottencode: Dressed to kill. Auch klar.

Nur das mit der Location war nicht so ganz klar. Das Mak [Museum für angewandte Kunst] werde Schauplatz der DJ-Sause, hieß es im Profil. Aber Peter Noever wollte nicht so gut sein und das Museum gratis zur Verfügung stellen. Weil: warum? Und zu wessen höherer Ehre?

Andererseits: Wie kann man sich denn so richtig toll fühlen, wenn es die anderen nicht so gut mit einem meinen? Die Party findet nun in der Ankerbrotfabrik statt. Eine Frage der Ehre. Klar.’

Mrs Habsburg

Mrs Habsburg

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The ThyssenArt Beast (1928-2009): A Letter To Tavarua Blogspot (by Caroline Schmitz)

Dear Author of Tavarua – The Traveler Blogspot,

I feel compelled to comment on your post dated 21 October entitled ‘A Legendary Art Collector’, where you repeat several of the Thyssen mantras, including that the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection was once housed at the family castle in Hungary. How far away from the truth you are can be seen from the evidence as described in our book. For instance, the foreword to the first exhibition of this collection, which took place in Munich in 1930, is extremely explicit and I will quote the most relevant passages from it to illustrate my comment to you:

‘…It was known to the inner circle of experts that during the last few years, shielded from the public, the basis for a new collection was created in Germany…..Even the owner and creator of the collection so far renounced the pleasure of seeing all of his treasures assembled in one place. Rather, he left them first of all under the seal of confidentiality in all those various locations where they had been acquired. This is why the Directorate of the Bavarian State Art Collections were so grateful and excited when, upon their suggestion, the collector Dr Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza decided to assemble the works, dispersed in Paris, The Hague, London, Berlin and other cities, temporarily in Munich and to entrust them to the ‘Neue Pinakothek’ for an exhibition…

…Here they are gathered for the first time to be appreciated by the public. One will note with amazement what has been possible in a surprisingly short period of time…I only wish to point out that it was possible to use the big movements on the art market, which the recent turmoils have brought with them, with circumspection and energy……

…Here they are: an exquisite male portrait by Michael Pacher and a female portrait by Albrecht Altdorfer, which we wholeheartedly commend as one of the high points of German art, as the perfect representation of German womanhood of that time in insurpassable truth and freedom…

…This new creation stands entirely alone in our German present……We believe that the national treasure can experience no greater enhancement and grounding than through the acquisition of great, noble works of art…

…The increasing impoverishment of our ‘Volk’ [the German people] and the financial crisis of our stately powers, which are becoming more dangerous every day, make us fear that the maintenance of cultural institutions will fall behind more and more…

…Dr Rudolf Heinemann-Fleischmann also carried out the laborious task of gathering all the works to be exhibited from their various locations….’ (Dr Fr Dörnhöffer, Munich, June 1930).

The sad truth about the Thyssen connection with Rechnitz (which has been Austrian, rather than Hungarian since 1921, before which it was known as Rohoncz) is that to this day the Thyssen family uses the name of the place to hide both the real provenance of their paintings and their own national provenance, which was firmly German, not Hungarian, Swiss, or anything else. This would not be quite as bad if, in March 1945, an appalling crime had not taken place in Rechnitz, which has tarnished the town’s image for ever.

The fact that, to this day, the Thyssens refuse to own up to their involvement in the Rechnitz Massacre of over 180 Jewish slave labourers to my mind makes their continued use of the town’s good name as a cloak for the early years of their collection especially distasteful.

Jan Lievens, 'Rest on the Flight into Egypt' (ca. 1635): The first painting purchased for the Thyssen / Rohoncz Collection, in the year 1928. It never went anywhere near Rohoncz (Rechnitz) Castle and neither did any of the other 524 of Heinrich Thyssen's paintings.

Jan Lievens, 'Rest on the Flight into Egypt' (ca. 1635): The first painting purchased for the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (Rohoncz Collection), in the year 1928. It never went anywhere near Rohoncz (Rechnitz) Castle and neither did any of the other 542 of Heinrich Thyssen's paintings.

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Reason For Rechnitz Silence Revealed

After twenty months of squabbling, discussing, debating and lecturing, many Swiss, German and Austrian academics, film-makers, journalists, politicians, ‘chariticians’ and even a playwright, have still failed to come up with a plausible reason why the people of Rechnitz have allegedly remained so unforthcoming concerning the details of the massacre and burial of two hundred Hungarian Jews in the grounds of Rechnitz Castle in 1945. I never found the people of Rechnitz unforthcoming, but for those who claim they did, I can now reveal the reason for their silence.

Shortly before I issued my statement at the Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre at Vienna University on 5 May 2009, Caroline Schmitz and I met with Professor Pia Janke and her assistant, Christian Schenkermayr, for a drink at Cafe Griensteidl. We were also joined by Teresa Kovacs, a tutor and research associate at the Centre. Most importantly, unlike any of the aforementioned ‘experts’ who claim to have been studying the massacre, Teresa was born and bred in Rechnitz. Her grand-parents worked for Countess Margit Batthyany (nee Thyssen) while her father always spoke openly to her of the tragedy.

Why Teresa chose me as a messenger should have been no more of a puzzle than why Rechnitz originally chose me, via their historian, Professor Josef Hotwagner, to tell their side of the story; or what they were prepared to tell me at the time. Perhaps she also realised that I didn’t and don’t suffer from a conflict of interests. A rare qualification indeed. Particularly in Austria.

But before I decided to publish her statement, I first wanted to see if any of the opinions aired at the Eisenstadt Symposium on 16 October 2008, or the recent series of lectures and discussions at the Jelinek Research Centre would include her explanation. So far, despite the potential immediacy of the internet, nothing has been revealed concerning what was said, apart from an apparent reassurance that reports of the two symposiums would be written, printed, bound and distributed to an undefined readership at some indeterminate time in the future.

When I read a recent article by the Austrian writer Martin Pollack in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, once again questioning the motivation of the people of Rechnitz ‘withholding information’, I was somewhat surprised that a man, who had found it so difficult to reveal his own family history, should be asking such a question, rather than supplying the answer. But it also occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t so much the people of the town who were secretive, as the plethora of ‘experts’, who had proved so reluctant to accept the truth.

I believe the reason why Ms Kovacs had decided to tell me what everyone in Rechnitz knows, is because she wants the public to know now. Not in another sixty years’ time.

So this is what she told me that afternoon at Cafe Griensteidl:

‘While Countess Batthyany was in Rechnitz, there was always money around. Her name was never spoken of in connection with the atrocity, only ever in connection with wealth and the beautiful Castle. Basically, the Countess continued to give money and plots of land away to people in Rechnitz right until the 1980s, practically until the day she died’.

It was so wonderfully clear, simple and obvious, it really shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to me. I already knew that Margit’s father, ‘Baron’ Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, had ‘primed the pump’ by bequeathing a plot of land, a specific plot of land, to his Rechnitz forester.

The Castle had always been the very heart and soul of Rechnitz. Without it, the town should have died, but the Castle’s continued existence would have been a memorial to the atrocity. Now, while Margit Thyssen’s money ensured the town’s survival, the ghost of the Castle continues to haunt the town.

As Teresa put it so beautifully: ‘The Castle has gone….but it is still there!’ Elfriede Jelinek could not have put it better.

Vienna, 2009

Vienna, Burgring, 2009

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Vienna University’s Impartiality In Question

During December 2008, I was invited by the Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre at the University of Vienna to take part in a discussion concerning her play ‘Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel)’ to take place in May 2009. Some four weeks prior to the event, I discovered one of the sponsors of the series of lectures and discussions under the title ‘Endless Innocence’ was to be Francesca Habsburg, nee Thyssen, in the form of her art foundation Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (T-B A21). My introductory statement which I gave on the evening of 5 May in Vienna was largely in response to this situation.  It read as follows:

‘I would like to say how gratified I am to have played such a major part in persuading Francesca Thyssen to accept, as part of her financial inheritance, some responsibility for her family’s behaviour. I believe this to be manifest in her sponsoring of this event.

However, I would have been even more gratified if she had made an apologetic admission, as opposed to a financial contribution, for being that the Thyssens were sponsors of Rechnitz Castle and the Countess (and I do have documentary evidence of that fact with me tonight), I consider there to be something obscenely ironic about the fact that we are all sitting here, 64 years later, discussing the Rechnitz Massacre, or a play by Elfriede Jelinek, which includes the massacre, while yet again being sponsored by The Thyssens in the form of Francesca’s art foundation.

I am also forced to question how, as long as any doubt remains concerning the extent of the Thyssens’ involvement in the Rechnitz Massacre, Vienna University can accept her money while claiming impartiality.

Unfortunately, this conflict of interest is not a unique situation in the academic world, particularly in the case of Wolfgang Benz, head of Anti-Semitism Research at the Technical University of Berlin, and Richard Evans, Chairman of the Faculty of History at Cambridge University, who have both attempted to discredit my writing in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and my book, ‘The Thyssen Art Macabre’, published in Germany under the title ‘Die Thyssen-Dynastie’, while accepting funding from the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

I am sad to say that I consider this type of arrangement brings into question the credibility of academic historians.

I now have another question. If Countess Margit Batthyany, nee Thyssen, sponsored the murder of 200 Hungarian Jews as after-dinner entertainment and possibly even played an active role in their murder, and then Elfriede Jelinek writes a play involving the atrocity, which can also be characterised as entertainment, albeit intellectual entertainment, but which I’m sure everyone here considers a work of art, where does that leave the killing of the Jews?

As I hope and believe is obvious from my article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and my book ‘Die Thyssen-Dynastie’, I consider it a crime against humanity. And no amount of art sponsorship, intellectual smoke screens or academic denial is ever going to alter that.’

I was subsequently informed that Francesca had promised the university to make a public statement, but had failed to do so, despite numerous reminders, prior to her departure to her house in Jamaica.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090515/social/social3.html

(For the German version of my statement, please go to ‘Events’).

Vienna University, Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre

Vienna University, Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre

The Reich and the Habsburgs working together in public & private partnership

The Reich and the Habsburgs working together in public & private partnership

Professor Janke of the Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre still experiencing difficulties appreciating what constitutes freedom of speech

Professor Janke of the Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre still experiencing difficulties appreciating what constitutes freedom of speech

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