Migration
“Introduction: Highlighting Austria’s Migration History” 2015 marked the culmination of the so-called “European immigration crisis,” which was, at that time, the largest increase of displaced persons seeking asylum in Europe since the end of World War II.1 Located between two major refugee routes, Austria received around 90,000 asylum requests that year which was the third…
Discovering Karol Rathaus is a feature-length documentary chronicling the life and legacy of Jewish-Austrian composer Karol Rathaus, a major figure in European modernism and the first professor of composition at Queens College, CUNY. Through archival research and international filming across Vienna, Berlin, London, and Ternopil, the film explores Rathaus’s forced emigration, his music, and his…
THE ETHNOGRAPHIC GAZE OF EMIL HABDANK DUNIKOWSKI (1855-1924): TRACING CULTURAL TRANSFERS AND IDENTITY-FORMATION PROCESSES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES AND AUSTRIAN GALICIA. Emil Habdank Dunikowski (1855–1924), a Galician geologist and traveller, traversed the American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific during his four scientific journeys (in 1891, 1892, 1893 and 1906). By investigating previously unexplored…
Vally Wieselthier: Sculpting Modernism, curated by Stephanie Buhmann at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, is the first comprehensive biographical exhibition in the United States dedicated to the Austrian-born ceramic artist Vally Wieselthier (1895–1945), a pioneering member of the Wiener Werkstätte and a transformative voice in modernist design. Tracing her full transatlantic trajectory—from her formative…
Some weeks after National Socialist Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, a small group of 15 and 16 year-old classmates of Jewish heritage promised one another that they would do their best to maintain ties. The boys’ original promise resulted in an extraordinary group correspondence that stretched over fifteen years and spanned three continents. This correspondence…
When filmmaker Marlo Poras’ grandmother escaped Nazi occupied Austria, she was stripped of her citizenship and everything she owned. Now Austria is offering Marlo the chance to “reclaim” her grandmother’s citizenship for herself. The Escape, a documentary film, follows Marlo’s journey deep into the Alps to unearth an unsettling family history that has haunting lessons…
The research project in question undertakes the attempt of tracing the “transfer” of legal thought, Austrian norms and maybe also “Austrian legal culture” to the United States. It does so by telling the story of three “Austrian” legal scholars, who all left their alma mater between 1933 and 1945 and continued their career in the…
The United States was one of the most important receiving countries for Austrians who had to flee National Socialists. A vast amount of archival material in the Austrian Archive of Exile Studies proves these tight historic connections between the two countries. The exhibition will educate a new generation of Austrians about the deep-rooted connections between…
Music was of crucial importance to the immigrants from Austria-Hungary, and cultural and social practice of great importance to their communities in the USA. They could document this facet of their self-identification thanks to new technologies – in the form of wax cylinders. A remarkable set of recordings can be found under the title of…
This project focuses on Jewish filmmakers, actors, and film technicians forced to leave Germany after the Nazi’s rise to power, many of whom went first to Austria and worked in the independent film industry that existed there between 1933 and 1937. The project will examine how these independent films engage with the experience of persecution…