HCZ Collective Exhibition

HCZ focuses on spaces of encounter in heritage and memory sites. It brings together existing initiatives, draws conclusions and uses them to build an exemplary model for workshops in heritage settings that can be used by third parties across Europe. HCZ focuses on spaces of encounter in heritage and memory sites. It brings together existing initiatives, draws conclusions and uses them to build an exemplary model for workshops in heritage settings that can be used by third parties across Europe. Heritage sites represent solidified history. One may feel a connection with the stories expressed about the matter on display, or not. Either way, these representations and their settings serve as a background, a physical space, in which a conversation about the validity of heritage can take place. Heritage sites represent solidified history. One may feel a connection with the stories expressed about the matter on display, or not. Either way, these representations and their settings serve as a background, a physical space, in which a conversation about the validity of heritage can take place.

HCZ focuses on spaces of encounter in heritage and memory sites. It brings together existing initiatives, draws conclusions and uses them to build an exemplary model for workshops in heritage settings that can be used by third parties across Europe. Heritage sites represent solidified history. One may feel a connection with the stories expressed about the matter on display, or not. Either way, these representations and their settings serve as a background, a physical space, in which a conversation about the validity of heritage can take place.

Engraving. "Tartare Calmuque. Les Tartares des Circacie, homme et femme" ("Kalmyk Tatar. Sirkas (?) Tatars, man and woman"). 1681 STRUYS, Jan Janszoon The Voyages of Jean Struys to Moscovia, Tartaria, India and other foreign countries ... to which was added as something worthy of being known, the Relation of a Shipwreck, whose consequences produced extraordinary effects, by Monsieur Glanius, Amsterdam, Chez la Veuve Iacob van Meurs, 1681. (Jan Streis' voyage to Moscow, Tartary, Persia, India... Relationship to the wreck of the Dutch ship named "Ter Shelling" off the coast of Bengal. B.2 parts in one binding, Amsterdam Jacob van Meurs printing house, 1681 y.)

AMSTERDAM "Handmade of brass from Ipatievsky Lane treasure trove. Holland. XVII century. OF 24670/121 The object is in the exposition of the Moscow Museum of Archaeology". AMSTERDAM

"Silver glass from the treasure trove from the Gostiny Dvor. XVII century. OF 31719 This course is in the custody of the "Foundations" department, sector of precious metals.”

AMSTERDAM «Cozak chief Stenka Razin throws the Russian princess he had married into the Volga, as related in the folk legend» STRUYS, Jan Janszoon. The Voyages of Jean Struys to Moscovia, Tartary, India and other foreign countries ... to which was added as something worthy of being known, the Relation of a Shipwreck, the aftermath of which produced extraordinary effects, by Monsieur Glanius, Amsterdam, Chez la Veuve Iacob van Meurs, 1681.

A Present from the Grandfather Who Had Emigrated to Chicago At the beginning of the 20th century, a Hungarian youth went to work in Austria and there he fell in love with an Austrian girl. The girl’s parents insisted that the young husband should emigrate to America to ensure a better life for his family. He missed the Titanic, and travelled on the next ship, leaving his wife and young children behind. He struggled to learn the language and the unfamiliar work processes. He sent the 3D-kit to his family in 1905. He entrusted three ship tickets and the money he had been putting aside for years to an acquaintance who was travelling back to Europe. The acquaintance never contacted my grandmother. She never met her husband again. Vincencia Sullai Terényiné

The 71 Notebooks of János Székely, Surgeon János Székely, surgeon (1920–2005), and his wife, Zsuzsanna Barna, lexicon editor (1922–2003), were both Jewish, and they were my godparents. Although this may seem to be paradoxical, the two facts are connected: my parents asked childless couples to be the godparents of their children, to make up for the fact that they could not have children of their own. Before his death, Jancsi asked me what I wanted to inherit from him. I tried to change the subject, but he insisted. At last, I asked for his desk. “Fine,” he said, “you will find some notebooks in the bottom drawer. Burn them.”

I found 71 small calendar books in the drawer, but I could not bring myself to burn them. I think the reason why he did not burn them himself and why he entrusted them to me, maintaining a bashful silence about their contents, was that he wanted me to read them. Jancsi started recording what happened to him each day in 1935, when he was fifteen, and wrote the last entry three days before his death. The entries for the period of 1939–1945 and the year 1956 are of special importance. The pages of the calendar were left empty from October 1944 to February 1945. There are only two entries for January and February 1945, obviously added later: “liberation” and “home from the ghetto”. Zsuzsa Hetényi

This is a Roneo stencil duplicator, the greatest advantage of which is that it is portable. In the 1970s there were several Hungarian authors who were not able to publish: publishing houses did not accept their writings, or the works of sociologists who focused on issues like the Roma or poverty. Initially, these writings spread in manuscript form or type written. Later, the printed samizdat appeared. The first machine was brought in pieces by western journalists, and sculptor István Haraszti, also known as “Sweetie”, assembled it and manufactured the missing parts. We used it until the first search of the premises by the police in December 1982, when it was seized. It was then that we received this Roneo. We were searched several times and sometimes caught red-handed, but this machine was never caught. — Gábor Demszky and Róza Hodosán See more of this story: http://kiallitas.elevenemlekmu.hu/en/ No. 45.

The Bust of Vasile Goldiş The sculpture was given as a gift to László Trencsényi, when he was invited to a ceremony conference of the Vasile Goldiş Western University of Arad at the beginning of the 1990s. Vasile Goldiş was a politician born in Arad, who actively contributed to establishing the independent Romania in 1918.

The sculpture gained personal interest when László Trencsényi found some notes by his grandfather, János Waldapfel, a teacher working at a grammar school participating in the university’s teacher training program. The notes reflected on a young man, who attended Pázmány University at that time (1881-82) under the name László Goldis, whose professional career as a teacher-to-be was supported by Waldapfel. The latter, born in Upper Hungary (now Slovakia), urged in his studies the assimilation of the Slovakian people living in that region. Goldiş drew the conclusion at the Treaty of Trianon, where the Károlyi government was represented by Oszkár Jászi, that the Hungarian government was impotent regarding national issues. Therefore, Goldiş participated in establishing the independent country of Romania. László Trencsényi

I have a gold ring I have been wearing for fifty years. I got it from my parents for my graduation. I had seen before under the handkerchiefs in my father’s drawer: there was a canvas bag, which I investigated as a child. The bag contained various objects, pieces of two gold necklaces a few centimetres long, rings and an old pencil. I already knew the history of these objects at the time, and it was these pieces that my ring was made of. My father’s father died early, and the three children lived with their mother. My father had a sister and a brother. His brother was taken to labour service to the bend of the Don River, and the family soon received a postcard that their son died a heroic death. A heroic death with a spade in his hand, you understand. My father was also taken to labour service, thus he was not at home when the Jews in Szolnok were rounded up and taken to the ghetto; he learned from the husband of a cousin, however, that his mother, before

being taken away, visited her brother-in-law, Uncle Arnold in Öcsöd – they were not deported yet –, saying that she had a little gold and she did not know what to do with it or where to put it. Uncle Arnold offered to hide it in the gutter. My grandmother and her family were then taken to Auschwitz and immediately gassed... But Uncle Arnold’s family ended up in Austria and survived, because they only had to work and were also given some food. So they came home. My father also survived, and when he came back from Mauthausen, he first went to Szolnok, but found nobody there, and then he tried the relatives, and finally went to Öcsöd, where Uncle Arnold told him to wait… then he reached into the gutter and took down the canvas bag. János Vajda

The walking stick stood in our flat, together with other old objects left by my grandmother. I did not know who the owner of the stick had been until I saw it recently in the hand of my cousin, Dr. György (Gyuri) Fleischmann, in one of the photos of my friend Rudi Groó. The picture shows Gyuri with Rudi’s mother at an outing, each with a walking stick in their hands. Aunt Bözsi was my cousin’s fiancée, who wanted to save him from being deported in 1944. Unfortunately, Gyuri did not accept, and he was taken to Auschwitz. Gyuri had polio as a child, which proved doubly fatal, first when he was transported by train. His companions

pried open the floor of the moving wagon and escaped, but he did not dare jump. The second time was when he had to walk before the eyes of Mengele, who noticed his limp and sent him to the gas after the second lap. Gabriella Vidor

Cutlery from the Officers’ Mess of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp My mother was born in Budapest in 1913 and graduated from secondary school in 1931. She learned English and German at school, and after passing her final exams, she obtained a position as an administrator at the First English-Hungarian Thread Factory. She was carried off to the concentration camp on 9 November 1944. I do not know where she was arrested, or how she got into the transport headed to Bergen-Belsen. She never spoke about her “experiences” and circumstances there, not even a word – and this is not an exaggeration. All I heard were a few words about the fact that they survived because the crematoriums in the camp had broken down by the

end of 1944. There was one other thing she let fall: that the prisoners fought over the potato peels thrown from the guards’ kitchen. This story also appears in Péter Gárdos’ book Fever at Dawn, written about the author’s father and mother, who were also prisoner at Bergen-Belsen. Gárdos also writes about this horrible incident with the potato peels. The camp was liberated by English troops in April 1945. My mother weighed little more than thirty kilograms, and she had typhoid fever. She could not eat, not even a bite, and this saved her life, because those who were able to eat, died, unable to digest the food. My mother was treated in an English military hospital. She used her English and German knowledge to act as an interpreter during the interrogation of the German prisoners of war until September 1945. When she left, she could keep the fork and the dessert knife as keepsakes to remember her time at the English military camp. The words “Offizierheim Bergen” are engraved on both utensils, which means that they come from the officers’ mess. János Solt

New Year’s Eve of 1939-40. My grandfather, who had a good sense of humour, sent this witty card to his friends and business partners, calling their attention to the fact that the coming year of 1940 is a “leap year”, when it is still possible to “take a leap” and escape the country. To the card, he added an exquisite self-portrait, a caricature on parchment paper, in which his impish smile is reminiscent of Anti-Semite pictures in the Nazi tabloid, Der Stürmer. He was a printer, a foreman at the General Printing House, the publisher of the newspaper Friss Újság, and a highly acknowledged expert. Anna Balassa

Letters from the prison My father was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment at first instance, and to 10 years at second instance, because he had been the commander of the National Guard in Nagykanizsa during the 1956 revolution. The young officer had participated in the military operations in the bend of the Don River (1943). He championed in modern pentathlon and was ranked 5th at the Berlin Summer Olympic Games (1936). After the war, it was only for short periods of time that he could work in a position suitable for his qualifications and skills (at the stud farm in Somogysárd), and he was a target of the secret services of the party-state to the end of his life (1981). The letters were written in the prison and addressed to his wife, who remained the sole

breadwinner of the family of 5 children. She had been a primary school teacher but lost her job when the husband was arrested. The eldest daughter soon became independent, and the older son emigrated to Australia at the age of 15 during the revolution. The letter is a deeply personal genre, even if it goes through the hostile screening process of the prison involving outsiders, as attested by the seals. My parents were members of the so-called upper middle class, they shared the fate of their class, enjoying its advantages and suffering the consequences of its dissolution.

The Rescued Child My mother found the one-and-a-half-year-old daughter of one of her beloved pupils in their Csengeri Street home in the autumn of 1944. The child’s father had already been taken to labour service, her grandparents were in the ghetto, and — as my mother learned from the caretaker — the little girl’s mother was taken by the Arrow Cross just the day before. My mother wrapped the child in a blanket and carried her in her arms to find her a safe place. There was a priest she knew who was said to help those in need, but it turned out that the Gestapo was watching him. So, she went to the Swedish Red Cross — but every inch of space was already taken there. Relying on what she heard on the street, she then went to the cloister on Svábhegy, where several Jewish children and adults had found refuge – until they were carried off by an Arrow Cross raid a few days before Christmas…

The Mother Superior did not want to receive the little girl because they had no room left, and they were not prepared to care of such a small child. Then, as my mother told me, a young nun, Sister Tarzitia, came out of a small room, took the child, and kept her in her cell even during the raids. She also saved the lives of two other little girls and their mother — but that is a different story… Borbála Trencsényi

The saphies (this is how I prefer to refer to lesbians) often do not show any understanding of bisexual people – they cannot imagine that a woman can fall in love either with a man or with a woman. (They don’t usually believe you; they think you are hiding). I can see a lack of understanding everywhere, not only by straight people. We are supposedly different, we should supposedly understand the difficulties of differentiation, we should be the first to understand and accept differentiation either within or outside our circle.

Crete reminds me of my childhood: the same coffee, the same food, the same tastes, smells, sounds, colours, the same madness. My parents were French refugees from Alexandria. However, from the time of their arrival in France in ’56, they remained foreigners, and so I was a foreigner as well. I grew up with the memory of an ‘east’ family past; with the memory of a lost homeland of a family that never made it into French society. I grew up with the same coffee, the same tastes, the same smells that we now have here in Crete and up until today, I have my mother’s coffee pot.

These boots were made for working. These traditional Cretan boots, Stivania, are a characteristic component of the Cretan costume. To me, they tell the story of the people, as well as the landscape of Crete.

Highly durable and practical, the boots are individually crafted in leather designed for the perfect fit and were (as they are now) an essential necessity on this rugged and beautiful island, its terrain impassable without them. Looking at these boots, I imagine that the men who wore them could have been both farmers and soldiers. They would have cleared the land to grow food for their families and, at the same time, were ready to defend the island from the many invaders who came to Crete over the centuries.

In 1944, the Jewish community of Crete drowned on their way to Auschwitz. The Romaniote synagogue re-opened in 1999, but our knowledge of Cretan Romaniote customs was limited. We were all surprised when the Rabbi of Athens introduced us to the Romaniote ‘Shaddayoth’, small dedicatory plaques with God’s name traditionally placed on the Torah shrine. The tradition of ‘Shaddayoth’ is rooted in both the Greek and the Jewish worlds of the Romaniote Jews. On Crete, it vanished together with the Jewish community in 1944 – to my knowledge, not a single Cretan ‘Shaddayah’ remains. Image © Jewish Museum of Greece

What defines my identity? Is it a random result of different factors – the era, the society, the civilization in which I live – or have I, myself, contributed to it as well? If yes, up to what point? And what is the driving force behind this shaping of my identity?

My friend’s boyfriend tried to make up for a gaffe he made during a discussion on gender equality: for the first time in the relationship, he took care of her as she would with him after a hard day’s work. Obviously, he liked and enjoyed doing so. Yet afterwards, he asked her not to tell anyone ‘so that they won’t make fun of me’.

I don’t know whether it is true or simply a myth that Sultan Bayezid II sent the Ottoman fleet to save the Jews who were being expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. Ιt is, however, a historical fact that the Sephardi Jews, among them my ancestors, found refuge and settled in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 15th century. In the same way, today many, if not most Europeans are themselves descended from immigrants or refugees, a fact that we seem to forget after a few generations given the apparent pan-European unwillingness to accept today’s refugees.

Balame stereotypes of the Roma are very narrow. I like books and I am really into photography. I prefer traditional photography, analogue, not digital. Those who get to know me through photography don’t believe that I am a gypsy. They don’t believe it because I am different to what the stereotype dictates, and they don’t allow the reality to dismantle (or destroy) their prejudices upon which they feel comfortable. The stereotypes of the Balame of us are narrow: I don’t fit in there.

Europeans with their passports can travel almost anywhere they like on this planet, either as tourists or in order to find work. We are here as refugees and yet, our right to asylum in this country remains unrecognized.

Islamic charity (Zakāt) is founded on the principle of knowing that all things belong to God. Traditionally, it is defined as an act of purification because it allows an individual to achieve balance and growth leading to new growth within the community. It is obligatory for all Muslims, who are able to do so, to donate a specific portion of their wealth. In addition, there is voluntary charity called Sadaqah. It is the personal responsibility of each Muslim to ease the economic hardship of others and to strive towards eliminating inequality.

Ten years ago, in a discussion, my elder brother and father proposed to me to see a doctor for ‘my problem’, for the fact that I am gay. Then they asked me why I had not spoken to them for so many years. I told them that first of all, the doctor would detain them, not me, and secondly, in order for a proper conversation to take place, a time machine must first be invented to bring my father from the 1960s and my brother from the 1980s into today’s reality. Oddly, the 1960s proved more promising.

For most Europeans, Greece and Crete are the cradle of European civilization. Yet, at the same time, things “never work” here like they supposedly do “in Europe.” The mascot of the 2004 Olympic Games reminds me of the astounding breadth and longevity of their heritage Cretans can identify with. But also the omnipresent doubts whether Greece would be able to properly organize the Olympic Games. In this way, the clay sculpture symbolizes the phenomenon that many (if not most) things happen in Greece against all odds or in spite of expectations to the contrary.

I will never forget the young guy from one of the Giritli (Cretan Muslim) villages in Turkey whom I met some 20 years ago, and whose Turkish was clearly a second language. Instead, he spoke Greek with such a heavy Cretan accent that he could only communicate with people from the rural parts of the island, not even with Haniots, let alone with Athenians.

BRA – The participant brought a bra that she used sometimes without ever feeling comfortable in it our being convinced of its functionality. During the workshop, the identity of the object has changed by applying Getrud Arndt creative philosophy to the transformation process. Considered as a pioneer of female self-portraiture, Arndt developed several of her works around the use of masks and costumes, allowing her to change her identity and to created playful reinterpretations of feminine tropes such as the widow, socialite, and a little girl. During the transformation the female object became a small pocket that could hold other things rather than women’s body.

BOTTLE FOR NUT OIL -The empty glass bottle used to contain a special nut oil from the region of the birthplace of the owner’s father. Her mother and everyone else in the family used to cook with this oil and until today using, smelling and eating it reconnects her to this region, the local culture and her family. This nut oil and therefore the bottle stand for equality within one community that also Bauhaus architects, such as Arieh Sharon in Israel, tried to create through their buildings and designs. By adding signs that symbolize the owner and her siblings to the bottle we wanted to emphasize this cultural artefact, its history and heritage and the existence of the owner within a bigger community.

WATER BOTTLE – Through the water bottle brought that is used individually only by the owner we had a talk about the usage of PET and global access to water. Inspired by the idea of collectivism, that was promoted in early Israel by the Bauhaus architect Arieh Sharon amongst others, we transformed the object into a bottle which could be used by many different family members.

Not sure there is an exact name for it in English, but this object became very popular in the 1980’s when the economic crisis hit Romania under Ceausescu’s rule. A Decree from 1977 set the standards for saving resources, one of the rules being that the temperature both in private and in public institutions should not be over 18 degrees. In the big iconic building in Timisoara where the three theatres and the opera were housed the temperature sometimes dropped to 9 degrees, as we found out from a series of official memos kept in the local Department of culture’s archive. The managers of all four institutions – Opera, National theater, Hungarian Theater, German Theater - signed together a paper begging for special measures, as the actors got sick while rehearsing and the singers were in danger to lose their voices. It is not by chance that it was in the balcony of this building where the first discourses about freedom were heard. It was a "hot" December in 1989.

In the interviews for Theater as Resistance and archival documents actors and technicians mention the omnipresence of the hot plates both in the actors’ cabins and in the hotel rooms when they were on tour. Sometimes, people even warmed their food on it. These were weapons of physical resistance. (C.M.)

White Bread The most basic need for bread was not easily met before 1989 in Romania. One could get the famous one pound white bread, franzela in Romanian, only in counted portions depending on how many members his/her family had. Every citizen had a paper card to be stamped when buying bread, which was often already stalled when brought to the shops. Sometimes, on Sundays, a “luxury” version of the common bread which came in long baguette-like form with pop seeds on its crust (batoane) suddenly appeared in the bread shops and people would queue for hours to get them.

Queuing for food was one of the most popular activities in communist Romania, everybody would take part in it, especially the old family members and the children, who had more time for this, while their parents were working. In the winter, early mornings, especially for getting fresh milk, people would take turns, not being actually present in the queue all the time. They would live their bags instead, watching them from the windows until the shops actually opened. But when the weather was good they would sometimes even enjoyed talking to each other while waiting for the food to come: the queue became an actual peoples’ forum when one could hear, among other political comments, the famous “Ceausescu jokes”, a way to cut the pressure of this “lifestyle”. As proven by the Securitate files, this was quite a risk, as informers were everywhere and for telling such a joke, or making a comment one could suffer dire consequences, among which being arrested.

The forerunner of the metallic on wheels baskets one can find in the supermarkets today, the small carry-on baskets made out of colorful wires were used for shopping food in the old general stores in Romania. They were the relatives of the rural willow baskets used by the peasants to carry various goods. One can still find these type of willow baskets attached to very urban bicycles, sometimes even Pegas ones (Pegas one the only brand of bicycle made in Romania). The communist era did not totally go away. There were comrades before 1989 who left the general store taking the basket with them. It was probably because they couldn’t find anything else so they took at least that. To bring something back home. But then why there are still people doing this nowadays?

One thing is worth mentioning: there was not much art and culture in the daily basket. The shelves of the cultural institutions were sometimes as empty as those in the general stores. One could hardly find a piece of well done literature or a roasted steak of theatre. Weapons of physical resistance.