Interview with Austrian Gedenkdienst Interns
On November 28, 2022, Karen Frostig, Director of the Locker of Memory project interviewed Kilion Ottisch, intern at the Museum “Jews in Latvia,” and Constantin Cerha, intern at the Lipke Memorial. I asked each intern to speak about their journey of seeking alternative military service and their commitment to work at institutions dealing with Holocaust history. I was particularly interested in their educational experience in Austria, as well as in family narratives that furthered their understanding of Holocaust history. Their candid remarks are illuminating. Here is what they said…
Karen Frostig, Director of the Locker of Memory project is interviewed by Camillo Spiegelfeld, serving as an intern at the LIpke Memorial.
Camillo is a Gedenkdienst volunteer, choosing an alternative service to Austria's compulsory national military duty. Gedendiest volunteers work in Holocaust- and Jewish culture-related institutions around the world. Camillo was also the coordinator for the Locker of Memory project’s Facebook page.
Camillo wanted to present the Locker of Memory project on the project’s Facebook page. He asked many probing questions about the difficulty of creating a memorial project at a neglected site. The area containing the Jungfernhof concentration camp was recently turned into a public park.
Initiated during a global pandemic, a regional war, and a pending recession, at a distance of 4,000 miles, the project reflects the diligence and dedication of a talented project team, committed to recovering the history of this unremembered site. Plans for a memorial will follow.
2022 Community of Scholars Annual Conference at Lesley University “Restoring memory to the Jungfernhof concentration camp using inventive methodologies”
Karen Frostig, Moderator. Panelists: Hazal Uzunkaya, Xan Jiang Maddock-Mark, Ilya Lensky, Jevgenijs Luhnevs, Shalini Prasad, Marissa Wandry, Dr. Richards Plavnieks, Evan Robins, Fred Zimmak, and Kabren Levinson.
The Locker of Memory is a multi-media, interdisciplinary project incorporating four disciplines: history, art, science, and technology. Following a brief overview of the history of the camp, we will focus on the development of a 3-D tour at the camp. Working with historians, technologists, artists and scientists, the panel will present examples of collaboration, experimentation, and mentorship, while we consider the project’s central goals: To stimulate interest in Holocaust history; to investigate a range of contemporary approaches to memorial development, dealing with histories of genocide; to examine complex issues surrounding strategies of memorialization taking into consideration multiple perspectives about the past; and to promote empathy regarding difficult histories.
Conference presentation about the Locker of Memory multimedia project at the “Difficult Heritage: Culture of Remembrance, Tourism, and Communication in the Digital Age” conference, in Riga, on March 18, 2022. Director, Karen Frostig, presented the 3-D tour project, developed for the Jungfernhof concentration camp. The tour provides a unique opportunity for visitors to take a virtual walk inside the camp and tour seven additional killing sites. The presentation includes an overview of Latvia’s history and audio tapes featuring testimonies from survivors about the site.
Places of Memory
Introduction to the Locker of Memory Memorial Project dedicated to the victims of the Jungfernhof concentration camp. Video presents onsite footage of the camp filmed in October 2019, and features four interviews: Karen Frostig, Founding Director; Ilya Lensky, Director Museum “Jews in Lativa”; Margers Vestermanis, Latvian Holocaust survivor and leading Holocaust historian; and Janis Asaris, Head of Ministry of Culture and the National Heritage Board of Latvia.
Latvian film crew: Gatis Grinbergs, Cinematographer and Nauris Buda, Audio recorder.
Jungfernhof
Concentration Camp
This short film provides viewers with an intimate look at the camp site in today’s world. Research indicates that the camp occupied approximately 200 hectares or 500 acres of land at the location of the Mazjumpravmuiža (farming manor). Ruins at the site refer to the shell of the manor which housed the Nazi commandant, Rudolf Seck and his men. All evidence of the flimsy barns and sheds captured in the archival map below, that provided inadequate protection from the harsh elements and brutal treatment of the imprisoned Jews, has disappeared.
Last historic photo of site (1993).
The camp, located on a remote and abandoned estate, did not have any means of escape, and was therefore, not defined by barbed wire. Latvian auxiliary police armed with rifles, instructed to shoot any Jew wandering past the implied perimeter of the camp, patrolled the border.
Map found in the Hamburg archives and presented at Rudolf Seck’s trial. Presumably drawn by a prisoner or a Nazi officer.
Today, there are no indicators of the exact parameters of the camp.
This short film captures the haunting presence of the past in the present. We can choose to forget, but something of the past remains..
Video of site (2020). Videographer: Nikolajs Krasnopevcevs
Memory Dialogues
The “Memory Dialogue” video represents a reflective discussion about an international tour for students to Holocaust memorial sites in Gdansk, Riga and Sztutowo, in October 2019. The workshop was organized by Sarah Grandke, Research Assistant at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial / Documentation Center denk.mal Hannoverscher Bahnhof in Hamburg. The visit to Riga concluded with a visit to the Jungfernhof concentration camp, where Jews from Hamburg, as well as deportees from Nuremberg, Vienna and Stuttgart were taken to in December 1941.