The following project is of special interest for me as it is concerned with the history of the region I've been living in for more than a decade now
Josef Schützenhöfer, Klaus Zeyringer
Project LIBERATION IN PROGRESSJosef Schützenhöfer was born in Austria and emigrated to the USA aged 18, where he worked as dental technician for the US-Navy and studied painting.
HOW IT BEGAN
After a 24 year residency in the US I returned to Austria in 1997. My American experience seems distant now and I have elbowed out a space on the path toward art here in Austria. Certain American images and habits have remained and certainly guide me through my daily agenda.
One project in particular is tightly laced to my time of studies in Norfolk, Virginia. It was then that I noticed a title page story in the Virginia Pilot newspaper about a German submarine crew who had abandoned their sinking ship (U-85 was sunk April 14, 1942 by the U.S.S. Roper) and were subsequently killed. Their remains were buried in Newport News at Newport National Cemetery (see pictuers below).
After I read this story, I visited the burial site and found a cemetery for thousand of Americans and among them twenty-nine Nazi mariners. I was astonished and moved and thought "what dignity and compassion to bury the enemy soldier next to America’s fallen". This image has never left me. It has grown faint over the years, but recently taken on focus again. ...On this Foreign Field - Liberator Harry Moore, 2007
... I now live in a small house in the eastern region of Austria, The day starts with a look out the kitchen window to watch the sun rise over the Wiesberg/Pöllau elevation. In June 1944 a USAAF bomber exploded on that spot and threw its mechanical intestines and crew all about the Nazi dominated country side. In the same year 2 more US bombers crashed in the immediate vicinity. By the end of the war the total number of American bombers downed in the region of Styria numbered about 460. None the less, the Allies did bring an end to the Nazi regime and liberty to Austria.
No word of dignity, no word of beauty fair adorns the crash sites of 1944/45 today. No police records of the time mention the crew members of the Ramp Tramp, no county registrars’ page makes a reference to the Texarkana Hussy aircraft burning high in the sky. Instead a great lament can be heard across the province to this day, commenting on how great the sacrifice for the Nazi effort was.
As I stand in Pöllau, at the local monument to the losses of World War II, one can read off local names, soldiers sacrificed while marching under false hopes, for some one else’s fatherland on the plains of the Ukraine - or in the waters off the coast of North Carolina.
The names of the people who resisted and fell, the names of the deported and murdered and the names of the fallen allied soldiers who liberated this soiled land - they have gone unmentioned.
Thus I suggested to the mayor of the town, that the monument should receive a note of contrast, not directly upon the walls of the monument, but in safe distance and still on the premises. It may be somewhat late to initiate such a search for names now, but still they can be found. To start with, for example, the names of American allied fliers who vanished in the valley in 1944. - Josef Schützenhöferhttp://liberation45.com/chronology/how-it-began/Visit of Robert W. Otto (Tail Turret, POW), one survivor of the Texarkana Hussy, 2008
Proposal for Liberation Marker, sketch, 2001
Proposal for Liberation Marker (Haldeman), sketch, 2004
Fallen U.S. airman, Pöllau, 1944
Before the Lynching 1944, sketch, 2007
Forest Grave Site of Fallen Airman, Pöllau, 1944
PlanesHUSTLIN' HUSSIE - Haldeman Lead Plane
Station: Torreta Airfield, Palermo, Italy
Target: Wiener Neustadt, Austria
Crashed: 29.05.1944
http://liberation45.com/hustlin-hussieRAMP TRAMP
Station: Grottaglie Airfield, Tarent, Italy
Targetl: Flugzeugfabrik Obertraubling, Regensburg, Germany
Crashed: 22.02.1944
http://liberation45.com/ramp-tramp/TEXARKANA HUSSY
Station: Giulia Air Field, Triest, Italy
Target: Raffinerie Moosbierbaum, Österreich
Crashed: 26.06.1944
http://liberation45.com/texarkana-hussy/LIBERATION IN PROGRESS, Exhibition Graz, 2012(presented works by various artists)
Multimedia project
LIBERATION ART PROJECT: SKUPAJ – MITEINANDER – TOGETHER – ENSEMBLE, Exhibition Maribor 2012
The Liberation Art Project: Skupaj – Miteinander – Together – Ensemble [...] The goal of the project is an international and social contribution to the discussion of past reactions to traumatic events. At the same time it is an incentive for a public discussion of various topics (such as community/enemies, homeland/foreign countries, war/peace), including a multilayered project and the so called “social sculpture.” This way international exchange programs and collaborations between artists, photographers, writers, musicians, etc., who bring literature other significant works of art to life, will take place. [...]http://www.maribor2012.eu/en/nc/project/prikaz/113905/
liberation45.com
