Culture, Education, Heritage

Love on a Paper Airplane

About this project

We cannot turn back the time. We cannot enter Emil Keglovits' photo studio in Szeged in 1912, where Zsigmond Braun and Aranka Buchhalter are posing for wedding pictures. We cannot be together with an affluent family on their holiday in Abbazia in 1916. However, we can ask old Jews to tell us stories. We can ask them to share their old family pictures with us and their memories about the people and the places in those pictures. Centropa has made life interviews with over 200 Holocaust survivors in Hungarian and has digitized over 5,000 family photos. These materials were used in an exhibition called 'Love on a Paper Plane' at 2B Gallery in the fall of 2016, which introduced the First World War period through personal stories and family photos.

Why is it important?

When we think about Hungarian Jewry and its history, almost immediately, we think about the tragedy of the Holocaust. We tend to forget how vibrant this Jewish life was before the war and how integral Jews were to Hungarian society. Our goal with the exhibition is to show that behind the numbers and data, human stories are hiding, and by learning about everyday Jewish life, we will understand the tragedy of the Holocaust better.

Why is it special?

Thanks to the photos of the huge families and the personal recollections, we get a peek into a world that seems very distant today – the time of the First World War. We visit Simon Goldgruber's slaughterhouse in Pálfa, Henrik Klein's and Rózsa Wagschal's wedding, we meet extraordinary women and men, families, we meet joy, sadness, and also love. Educational materials and methodology based on Centropa's database combine new technologies with old stories. Experience-based educational programs were developed to help educators deliver the historical events of the 20th century with the tools of the 21st century to young people.