10. - 12.
**note: please excuse the odd formatting in this entry, I have not figured out how to fix it!
Day 10. Exhausted, rested up for most of the day!
Day 10. Exhausted, rested up for most of the day!
Day 11. Judenplatz/Jüdisches Museum Wien. I will do a unique entry for these museums at a later date!! I would like to return to both of them again in order to properly evaluate everything I'd seen.
Day 12. The idyllic and sleepy town of Eisenstadt holds many treasures! One we visited was Bergkirche, a church which was built in the 18th century by Prince Paul Esterházy. Like the Catholic art canon mentioned in previous entries, this church is iconic of the dramatic and passionate Catholic aesthetic! Saints galore! It is just down the street from the Esterhazy palace. We were lucky enough to visit the church during a choir recital - beautiful~
Statue outside the church, St. Sebastian (my fav!) on the left. You can tell it's him because he was shot full of arrows. He was also present in many statues in St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna.
One altar in the church. Appears to be children in the sunflowers, maybe members of the Church?
The church is home to many dramatic stories. Famous composer Joseph Haydn conducted and wrote some of his later works here in the church, and the organ he played on is still located in the church! His tomb is located in a locked corridor in the building, which we were privileged enough to see. However, his death was quite eventful: our tour guide told us that upon his death, a researcher was interested in studying Haydn's skull to see if Haydn's brilliance could be attributed to the shape of his head. (This is called phrenology and has been wildly disproven.) The researcher kidnapped the skull, held it captive for many years, until the family had Hadyn's remains transferred. Upon exhumation, they realized his skull was gone! One thing left to another, the researcher lied and gave the family another skull, but eventually the truth of the false skull was figured out. Eventually, the real skull was found, and returned to the body, where it remains today.
Haydn's tomb, complete with skull!
One of the main draws of the church is the 24 Stations of the Cross, which were erected more than 250 years ago. The Bergkirche became a site of pilgrimage during the period, where visitors would visit the stations in order, winding in and out of the corridors and enclaves carved out of the church. The tour guide mentioned something about 35,000 pilgrims would visit this relatively small church....I wonder how they all fit!
Station X., which contains depictions of Jews accusing Jesus. At the time of creation of the works, Jews of this period would wear Spanish inspired garments, including collar and hat. This was reflected in the statues, and must have caused strife between the pious visitors and the local Jewish population.
The stairwell to the final Stations, with a breathtaking view!
While we've visited many churches on our trip, the Österreichisches Jüdisches Museum truly surprised me. The museum has an unassuming exterior, modestly marked by a plaque and Star of David above the door, sits on a quiet alley. On one side, an iron chain grazes the street. This chain, now rusted, once marked the gateway of the Jewish quarter of Eisenstadt – both to delineate its boundaries, and to be used for ceremonial purposes. Historically, Jews were allowed to settle in Eisenstadt after being expelled by Emperor Leopold I.
Entrance to the Museum.
The chain, located at the entrance of the Jewish Quarter.
The museum itself is extraordinary, passionately directed by Johannes Reiss. His dedication can be seen in the work the museum collects – rarities such as a recently discovered Torah wimpel of famed Rabbi Akiba Ever. But where this museum sets itself distinctly apart from similar institutions is found around the corner from the museum building: the old Jewish cemetery, the oldest of its residents dating back to the 1600s.
More than a thousand gravestones pepper the landscape, tightly packed into a relatively small area. While many of the gravestones have worn due to age, and names are difficult to identify, Johannes has implemented an ingenious project to help families find the relatives buried here. Due to the excellent death records kept by a director in the past, a list of those buried in the old cemetery can be used to identify each specific grave.
Using a special identifier called a QR code, visitors to the cemetery can scan each individual headstone code with their phones or other internet-connected device, and receive information about the person buried from an online database. While we examined the graves with Johannes, two workers braved the extreme heat, affixing the QR codes to the stones.
A QR code affixed to a gravestone, which can be scanned by a smartphone.
While QR codes are not a particular new technology (they were first developed in Japan in 1994,) this innovative project allows for a certain freedom that start-of-the-art technologies do not. A QR scanner can be run on many models of older phones, so it is accessible to a broad range of individuals who may not possess the most recent iPhone model. This intersection of history, memory, and technology is particularly relevant to me, as it is what I am writing my Sociology Honors Thesis about!
To conclude: Connecting graves to the internet!!
Who builds and runs the database?
What a fascinating concept. I have a few questions for Johannes that I plan to ask him for my video project, such as:
What gave you this idea to attach QR codes to the gravestones?
Do any other cemeteries you know of do this?
Who provides funding for this project?
How long will it take to fully implement?
Was your intent to use this QR technology so that many people who do not have state of the art cell phones can access the information?
What problems have you run into deploying this project?
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