The names of artists who shaped the Salzburg Festival and were persecuted by the Nazis can be read on raised brass plates.
28 so-called stumbling blocks have had their place in front of Mozart’s house on Salzburg’s Max-Reinhardt-Platz since Monday. From now on, they will be reminiscent of festival artists who had a decisive influence on the festival in the almost 20 years from the founding of the festival to its connection in 1938 and who were persecuted or murdered by the National Socialists. The festival takes on the financial sponsorship.
The historian Gert Kerschbaumer has researched the biographies of the artists, whose names can now be read on the cube-shaped brass plates on the floor. The most famous names are festival founder Max Reinhardt, but also conductors such as Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter and Erich Kleiber. On the stones are the names of the artists as well as their year of birth, their profession, the year of their escape and their destination. In between there are always stones without a brass plate. “They should remember the many artists, for example the Philharmonic, who are not included in this selection,” said Kerschbaumer.
Kerschbaumer would not have believed that the stones would actually lie here – “in the center of society”, as he asserted in his speech. Up to now there have not been any “stumbling blocks” for festival artists. The Stolperstein project has been around since the 1990s and comes from an idea by the artist Gunter Demnig, with whom Kerschbaumer was also in contact. Almost 500 stones have been laid in Salzburg so far.
In addition to being the “center of society”, the stones have definitely also made it into the center of the festival activities. “It was very important to us to place the stones prominently and visibly here on Max-Reinhardt-Platz. The Festival has always seen itself as ambassadors for peace and wants to send a big message,” said Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler, the Kerschbaumer in his Called the speech “President Courage” because of her commitment. Last year, the Stolpersteine personal committee and the Israeli religious community approached the festival.
A double “stumbling block” entitled Rose Quartet is particularly noticeable. According to Kerschbaumer, behind this is a quartet of the Philharmonic Orchestra. Alma Rose, who also received a memorial stone, should be familiar to visitors to the “Speeches about the Century” in particular, as she directed the so-called Girls’ Chapel from Auschwitz, which also included the festival speaker Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was previously on video The recorded speech on Saturday in the Felsenreitschule emphasized several times that music alone saved her life in the concentration camp.
“Music is a part of the world and a world of its own. It means something different to everyone. There is only one thing music cannot express: lies. As criminal as the National Socialists were, you have to deal with it again and again, and that’s why it is It is wonderful that this project exists, because anyone who does not deal with the past is not a person, “said conductor Daniel Barenboim, who also addressed a few greetings to the crowd in front of the house for Mozart, who had come so numerous that one could not spontaneously relocated to the Festspielhaus for indoor speeches.
Afterwards, Rabl-Stadler, Kerschbaumer and Danielle Spera, director of the Jewish Museum, unveiled the two rows of stumbling blocks and framed them with flowers. Salzburg now has a total of 469 “Stolpersteine”, whose human stories can be read on www.stolpersteine-salzburg.at.
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