WIR SIND WIEN.FESTIVAL: made you look - Jewish Memorial culture in Wien

This is a critical look at how Vienna remembers - or ignores - its Jewish heritage and trauma.

So much of our city’s creative dynamism came out of Jewish culture, and we are still missing some of the humour, ambition and curiosity the Jewish community brought to our home town.

Not all memorial culture is official, and it does not need to be respectful. Songs, demonstrations, films, newspaper articles, posters, novels and badges represent contemporary - and often cool - remembrance. We need more of that, says Eugene. He lives in Leopoldstadt, historically the ghetto, and still the heart, of Jewish culture in our city.

How do we celebrate the story of Stefan Zweig, Hedy Lamarr, Sigmund Freud and Hugo Breitner?

In fact there are more post-war Jewish heroes than most Viennese know about: Simon Wiesenthal, Bruno Kreisky, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Elfriede Jelinek, Andre Heller, Michael Landau and Elizabeth T Spira.

So what will we visit on this unusual stroll?: Turnhalle in Rudolfsheim, Kindertransportdenkmal in Westbahnhof, two art projects from Kunst im Öffentlicher Raum, Haus des Meeres, bomb damage on Akademie (with inscription), human rights table, Albertinaplatz Hrdlicka sculpture, list of all Jewish victims in front of Nationalbank, Holocaust Memorial on Judenplatz, central synagogue to remember two terrorist attacks, Wiesenthal Centre, resistance monument on Morzinplatz (with museum/archive), and a Stolperstein.

If you visit Munich, Berlin or Nürnberg, you can explore second world war in lots of detail. But while visiting Vienna, you can explore Mozart in lots of detail. This is a missed opportunity, and enables cynical operators to manipulate history, or tell lies.

People around the world are surprised to discover that there is a Jewish population of Germany and Austria now, and so we also choose to look to the present and future.

Eugene has long dreamed of staging a project called Gefilte Flak. The memorials of the Holocaust and Vienna's lost Jews are mostly traumatic and sad. But we want to recreate the Kosher food of the original community, bringing visitors and residents into dialogue, while enjoying interesting and unusual central-European dining. Whereas most monuments are cold stone, we want - through social design - to remember the vitality and curiosity of our city before second world war. Many Austrians choose to forget the contribution of the Jewish people, abut we will present our event on top of Haus des Meeres, originally a Nazi gun attack tower, as a symbolic space. #gefilteFlak

This tour is a part of the beautiful WIR SIND WIEN.FESTIVAL summer celebration of local life in Vienna. We are proud to continue our partnership with Vienna's lively culture department, Basis Kultur.

You can join this tour for free, but must be registered. Details will follow soon.