DIE STADT OHNE

Das Digitorial ist eine kostenlose Kurz-Präsentation der Ausstellung in digitaler Form und bietet schon vor dem Besuch erste Einblicke und interessante Hintergrundinformationen.

“The City Without Jews” was the title of Hugo Bettauer’s 1922 novel in which he described the expulsion of all Jews from Vienna, considered an inconceivable idea at the time. Director Hans Karl Breslauer’s film adaptation in 1924, however, was already accompanied by disruptive actions by National Socialists, and Bettauer was shot and killed by a Nazi in 1925. The rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party in Austria by means of terror resulted in the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria into the Third Reich) in 1938. The expulsion and murder of Central European Jews during the Holocaust followed.

The exhibition THE CITY WITHOUT accompanies the release of the newly restored silent film, internationally regarded as the first cinematographic statement against anti-Semitism. This unique historical document is not only presented inthe context of the history of  the First Republic but also in that of current social reality. Taking individual scenes as a point of departure, the exhibition oscillates between the past and the present: it shows how mechanisms of social exclusion function, retracing the individual stages of the exclusion process from the polarisation of society to the final expulsion of the »scapegoats«.