Neuner underwear shop - Krems macht Geschichte

Introduction

KremsMachtGeschichte invites you to learn about and engage with the history of National Socialism in Krems. As you move through the city you connect various historical sites with each other. A simple stroll creates a personal narrative that brings the places, themes and histories into the present and enables you to keep the past alive in your critical memory.

What does it mean to “make history”? In 1938 Krems became the capital of the Gau, or Nazi administrative district, of “Lower Danube”. This was a time when Krems was making history, but history of a kind many would like to forget today. Today, when we remember, when we name perpetrators and tell the stories of victims, when we make resistance visible and point out continuities, we’re participating in the writing of history in our society. History isn’t just written in schoolbooks and by historians and at universities; it’s continually being produced by our everyday actions. History happens in the here and now.

24 historical sites, marked by green pennants, form the stations of the KremsMachtGeschichte tours. Every site stands for a different event that has something to tell us about destruction, persecution and crime, as well as about responsibility, solidarity and resistance. Some roads lead to memorials that glorify the past and that today need some historical correction. Prominent positions in the cityscape are taken up by the court and the prison, places where Nazi violence was once inflicted but that today contribute to the functioning of democracy. Many sites of past events are unrecognisable as such today; only through your imagination can they come back to life.

The information about each place can be called up with any smartphone by using the QR codes on the pennants. Texts and images can also be found in the catalogue which is displayed at various places in the city. By taking a walk through the city, you’re already making some history. En route from site to site, the historical picture gradually becomes more intricate. Common themes emerge, each of which groups the sites in a new way and connects them with our contemporary world. The themes include “on Jewish life”, “on resistance”, “on persecution and punishment” and “on remembering”. The short texts under these titles give some initial ideas that you can question and add your own stories to on the empty pages of the catalogue.

The Neuner underwear shop once stood next to the Steiner Gate, at the start of the street Schwedengasse, where today a wide range of apricot products are sold. After the “Anschluss” of 1938, it was one of the Jewish shops that were looted by a rapacious mob.

The shop had been founded by Albert Neuner (1865–1930). Albert and his wife Agnes had three children: Ernst, Arthur and Charlotte. Arthur emigrated with his wife Frieda to Palestine, but returned to Austria in 1937. They were both deported from Vienna to Minsk in 1942 and murdered there. Charlotte, a married homemaker, died with her daughter in Theresienstadt. Ernst Neuner survived in Vienna. He and his non-Jewish wife provided food packages to relatives and acquaintances in Theresienstadt. Between November 1943 and January 1945, the couple sent 960 packages – an average of two per day. Agnes Neuner, the mother, survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp and died in 1963 – at the age of almost 100 – in Vienna.