by trafo.K
KremsMakesHistory: How to Keep Local Memory Alive in a Small Austrian Town
[During our workshop “How to Grätzl-Remembrance” we worked with people involved in different areas of remembrance culture. Among them were members of trafo.K, who will share one of their projects from the town of Krems in Lower Austria. Their work shows how local stories and memories can be kept alive through creative and community-based approaches. (Florian Edlinger – Verein Gedenkdienst)]
A public history project on the lasting traces of Nazism in Krems
What happens when history isn’t told behind glass, but out on the street – between cafés, bus stops, and house façades?
Website, booklet, and interventions in public space – since April 2024
The project KremsMachtGeschichte explored this scenario by tracing the footprints of Nazism in Krems – inquiring both into their origins and into where they still echo today. Twenty-four sites across the city, marked by green pennants, tell stories of persecution and destruction, but also of responsibility, solidarity, and resistance. The curatorial selection of these sites follows an educational aim: each location tells a story specific to Krems while at the same time tying it to the history of violence and its continuities throughout Austria. Visitors can access texts and images via QR codes or pick up the printed catalogue available around the city. It provides sprace not only for information, but also for personal notes.
This way, walking through Krems becomes a form of engagement. You pause, read, think. The sites begin to connect and themes such as “on remembering,” “on Jewish life,” or “on resistance” weave through the city and into the present. Moving from pennant to pennant, a new picture emerges: not a single, linear story, but one that links, unsettles, and moves.
A project by purpurkultur (Beatrice Jaschke), Toledo i Dertschei (Eva Dertschei, Carlos Toledo), trafo.K (Renate Höllwart, Simon Nagy, Elke Smodics, Nora Sternfeld) and Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, commissioned by kremskultur
Further credits can be found on the project websites:
https://kremsmachtgeschichte.at/
https://www.trafo-k.at/projekte/kremsmachtgeschichte/
photo: Eva Dertschei
photo: Eva Dertschei
Trafo.K
trafo.K is an independent office for research and education working at the intersection of learning, art, and critical knowledge. Its projects range from media and youth work to art interventions, training, and museum consulting, often engaging with contemporary art, participatory research, and contemporary history.
photo: Carlos Toledo