Reading and discussion with Nadine Olonetzky, moderated by Barbara Thimm

Nadine Olonetzky's research shows that the wounds of the past extend into the present. A polyphonic contemporary history and a poignant reflection on silence and remembrance. Her mother's family leaves behind memories, heirlooms and stories. All that remains of her father's Jewish family is a small photo. Only once did her father tell her about what had happened to him and his family during the Shoah - on a park bench in the Botanical Gardens in Zurich. Nadine Olonetzky was fifteen at the time and her father was now a graphic designer and amateur photographer who had to record everything before it disappeared. Decades later, she comes across mountains of files and discovers what her parents had kept secret from her for so long. Starting from the conversation on the park bench, Nadine Olonetzky traces the history of her family from Odessa through the war years and her father's years-long fight for so-called »reparations« to the present day. With urgency, intimacy and laconic humour, she tells how what happened and the knowledge and ignorance of it affected her life and asks the questions she was never able to ask her father.

The book unsentimentally explores the shadows of persecution that remain. It tells of flight, pain, anger and madness, but also of love and courage to face life; of the magic of images, the calming power of a garden - and of the limits of coming to terms with what has happened. Death, flight and loss cannot be made up for, but they can be made visible. An event organised by the Jewish Museum Hohenems in cooperation with the Museum Prestegg.