Heinrich Brunner to Jacob, Marco and Wilhelm Brunner in Trieste, Hohenems 20.11.1833. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
Within a brief time span, four sons of Heinrich and Helene Brunner, née Marx, have left Hohenems to seek their fortunes in Trieste. Jacob, Marco, and Wilhelm
—the latter two not yet twenty—establish a trade business in Trieste around 1832, which offers textiles purchased in St. Gallen, so-called “Swiss goods.” In 1835, Carlo (Hirsch) will follow them as well. In their joint letter to them of November 20, 1833, Heinrich tells his sons that the butcher’s shop was going well and that he, however, does not know where his sons might get hold of red calfskin, presumably for selling in Trieste. On the back page, mother Helene and sister Henriette report news from daily life. Helene urges her son Wilhelm to learn something and not to drowse. The Brunner brothers in Trieste frequently travel to St. Gallen. Thus, personal contact within the family is maintained as well. In 1835, Marco returns to devote himself entirely to purchase activities in St. Gallen and eventually establish a bank, from which UBS would ultimately emerge.
Helene and Henriette Brunner to Jacob, Marco and Wilhelm Brunner in Trieste, 20.11.1833. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner EstateHeinrich Brunner to Jacob, Marco and Wilhelm Brunner in Trieste, 20.11.1833Helene and Henriette Brunner to Jacob, Marco and Wilhelm Brunner in Triest, 20.11.1833
“Soirée at Lucian Brunner’s” March 23, 1909, Oil sketch, presumably by Alexander Pawlowitz. Loan from Francesca Brunner-Kennedy, Virginia
Lucian Brunner (1850 – 1914) spent his childhood and early adulthood in Hohenems and St. Gallen, but was also often in Trieste and traveling. The son of Marco Brunner and Regina Brunner, née Brettauer, worked at the “Jacob Brunner Bank” in St. Gallen until 1888, but eventually settled in Vienna together with his wife Malwine Mandel and their three boys; here he was active as industrialist and politician. He became involved in a small liberal-oriented party, the “Viennese Democrats,” assuming functions as Viennese municipal council member, as chairman of the “Demokratischer Zentralverein” (Democratic central association), and as publisher of the associated newspaper Volkstimme. In the Viennese municipal council, he repeatedly confronted the anti-Semitic mayor Karl Lueger, for instance, when preventing subsidies from tax money for a church construction or when contradicting nationalistic positions. Lucian Brunner always kept in touch with his home community in Hohenems and donated significant sums for the construction of the hospital and the gymnasium. When he passed away on April 15, 1914, he left behind a bequest for a non-denominational school in his hometown of Hohenems. The Hohenems municipal council refused to accept the bequest. The sketch shows the Brunner family as typical representatives of Vienna’s upper bourgeoisie whose evenings were used for self-representation in their own parlor.
Lucian Brunner, speech in the Vienna City Council on the German-Czech Language conflict – after a Language decree by Minister of Interior Badeni made Czech a second mandatory official language in Bohemia and Moravia. Vienna, April 27, 1897.Lucian Brunner, speech in the Vienna City Council about minority rights in Vienna and Trieste – on the occasion of the planned extension of the Czech Komensky-School in Vienna-Favoriten. Vienna, October 22, 1897.
Tea Brunner: menu card for a dinner party for members of the US army, Forcoli, August18, 1944. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
In 1916, Rodolfo Brunner had acquired the large compound of Forcoli in Pontedera, Tuscany, which almost three decades later would become a refuge for some family members while other members of the Brunner family escaped to Switzerland or left for England in time. After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in September 1943, Rodolfo and his wife, Gina, his daughter-in-law Maria Teresa (“Tea”) Brunner, née Clerici (1908-1947), and her four children fled to Forcoli; here they did not raise the German invaders’ suspicions and survived war and persecution while Leone Brunner, Tea’s husband, was involved in the resistance against the National Socialists. In honor of the American liberators, Tea Brunner gave a dinner party for “Combat Command B” on August 18, 1944. Tea Brunner died at a young age, leaving behind five children. Her eldest son was Carlo Alberto Brunner.
Tea Brunner: menu card for a dinner party for members of the US army, Forcoli, August18, 1944. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
The Jewish communities in Europe are in part significantly older than the Christian communities; after all, Europe’s Christianization was completed only in the Middle Ages. Nonetheless, until recently, the term “Christian Occident” was applied to Europe; hereby, eleven million Jews who had lived here prior to the National Socialist period were erased from European culture via linguistic usage. The relationship between Catholicism and Judaism was put on a more positive footing only under the impact of the Holocaust and with the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). This had been preceded by the establishment of Christian-Jewish associations—as a critical reaction to the anti-Semitism and complicity of the churches in the genocide of the European Jews. It would take until 1986 until the first pope, John Paul II, Karol Wojtyła (1920-2005), would enter a Jewish house of prayer, namely, the Great Synagogue of Rome together with Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff.
The catchword “Judeo-Christian West,” which has recently become popular, is a political battle cry. With its help, an old minority is meant to be coopted and mobilized against a new minority. It alludes to the cultural heritage of Greek and Roman antiquity as well as to the Bible. The fact that a significant part of this heritage is owed to Arabo-Islamic mediation is withheld as is the fact that Jews have always been forced into precarious life conditions and threatened by pogroms. Moreover, European protests against the construction of mosques recall prohibitions to build synagogues, which had been in force in large parts of Europe until well into the second half of the 19th century. Thus, the protests are also directed at the houses of worship of Muslims who speak Slavic languages and are shaping the culture of Southeastern Europe since hundreds of years. The concept of a European “Judeo-Christian community of shared values” blatantly contravenes Article 10 (1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that declares: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”
Doron Rabinovici (Wien) über die Rede vom “christlich-jüdischen Abendland”:
Bust of Rodolfo Brunner, by Oscar Brunner. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
The second generation of the Hohenems immigrants in Trieste catapulted the Brunner family to their social and economic zenith. On the one hand, Rodolfo Brunner (1859-1956), eldest son of Carlo Brunner and Caroline, née Rosenthal, owned substantial shares of the family’s industrial enterprises (including chemicals, pharmaceuticals, mines, and shipping companies) and held management functions in companies such as Generali insurance, of which the Brunners were also shareholders. On the other hand, he specialized in the modernization and optimization of agriculture in Veneto and Friuli, not least in the Isonzo river delta. Politically, he was sympathetic to the Liberal-National Party of Trieste, which demanded a stronger orientation toward Italy, while he kept striving for reconciliation with Habsburg-Austrian interests. Like the majority of Trieste’s elite, but also many of the city’s Jews, he aligned himself with the Italian Fascists already early on. As business tycoon, he probably had frequent contact with the city’s top-ranking politicians. However, the reason for the meeting with Mussolini in this photograph is unknown; perhaps it is in connection with the award of the “Blue Star for Agricultural Merits,” which was bestowed on Rodolfo in 1937. His grandnephew Oscar Brunner (1900 – 1982) was an architect and sculptor, but only few of his works can be found in public collections.
Rodolfo Brunner and Benito Mussolini, probably in 1937. Photoalbum of the family with scenes from their activities own their farms in the Isonzo delta. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner EstateCarlo Alberto Brunner, “Il Fondo del Ghetto“ (The Bottom of the Ghetto): About Rodolfo Brunner and the adventure of industrializationCarlo Alberto Brunner, “Il Fondo del Ghetto“ (The Bottom of the Ghetto): About Rodolfo Brunner and World War I
Extinguishing Cradle from Carlo Alberto Brunner’s desk. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
The Jewish Museum Hohenems owes its collections of Carlo Alberto Brunner (1933-2014) to his children who, after his passing, have decided to permanently loan the museum part of his estate. Carlo Alberto Brunner grew up in Trieste as the first son of Leone Brunner and Maria Teresa Brunner (née Clerici). He survived the Nazi period with his family on their compound in Forcoli, Tuscany. From the German invasion onward until the late 1960s, the family had to face substantial economic losses. After the sale of the property in Forcoli, Carlo Alberto moved to Israel and converted back to Judaism. He first lived on a religious and then on a socialist kibbutz. In 1974, he married Nurit Feuer and went on living with his family in an apartment in Giv’atayim, a suburb of Tel Aviv, surrounded by memorabilia from his Hohenems and Triestine family, oil paintings from the early 19th century and from Trieste, heirlooms and memories. Carlo Alberto Brunner also left behind a book manuscript, Il Fondo del Ghetto, in which he contemplates the stations of his life and his family history as mirrored in the great political ideas, historic events, and nationalistic catastrophes of the 20th century.
Carlo Alberto Brunner: Il Fondo del Ghetto (The Bottom of the Ghetto), Manuscript. Jewish Museum HohenemsCarlo Alberto Brunner, Il Fondo del Ghetto (The Bottom of the Ghetto). Childhood under German occupationCarlo Alberto Brunner, Il Fondo del Ghetto (The Bottom of the Ghetto). Israel and ethnic nation states
ID of Leone Brunner under his false name of Leopold Berti, October 16, 1943. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
Leone Brunner (1908 – 1969) was the youngest child of Rodolfo and Gina Brunner in Trieste. He studied agriculture and converted to Catholicism in 1930. In 1932, he married Maria Teresa (Tea) Clerici; the couple had five children. On his family’s estates, Leone led the life of the landed gentry, characterized by a passion for hunting and other hobbies befitting his rank. As heir of his parents‘ considerable possessions, he also became board member of Banca Triestina as well as president of the stockbreeders’ association. After the German Wehrmacht’s invasion of Trieste in 1943, he joined the resistance against the National Socialists and assumed in this context the false identity of “Leopold Berti.” Part of his resistance activities consisted in drafting reports to the American armed forces on locations and types of the German invaders’ military installationsand vehicles. In the meantime, his family remained fairly protected on the Brunners’ Forcoli country estate. Following liberation, the family returned to Trieste. After his wife’s death in 1947, Leone Brunner would never remarry.
Location description of German military installation in Rome, February 26, 1944. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
Hoof of Guido Brunner’s horse “Trieste”. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
The crumbling of the multicultural city of Trieste into ethnic and political camps had a deep impact on families: Guido Brunner (1893 – 1916), older son of Rodolfo and Gina Brunner and, like his mother, an adherent of irredentism, the movement directed against Austria and in favor of annexation to Italy. This also brought him into conflict with his father who was loyal to the Habsburg Monarchy. As Austrian citizen, Guido Brunner was drafted to the army. However, he deserted and joined the Italian troops. His cousins, too, fought on different sides in World War I, for the Austrian Monarchy and in the British army. On the Austrian side, Guido was sentenced to death as renegade, but pardoned by Emperor Franz Joseph. Nevertheless, he went to war for Italy in 1915 and was killed on June 8, 1916 in the battle of Monte Fior in the Alps. His remains were never found. Guido Brunner’s horse “Trieste” survived the battle and spent the rest of its life at the Brunners’ Tuscan estate in Forcoli. In line with an equestrian tradition, a hoof was prepared after the horse’s death and used as an object of decoration or utility. The metal cap displays the inscription: “Trieste Segui in guerra il suo padrone Guido Brunner mori e fu sepolta a Forcoli li 8. XII.1918” (“Trieste — He followed his master, Guido Brunner, into war, he died, and was buried in Forcoli on December 8, 1918.”)
Carlo Alberto Brunner, Il Fondo del Ghetto (The Bottom of the Ghetto). On Guido Brunner’s “heroic death”
Installation Do We Understand Each Other? Photo: Dietmar Walser
Having grown up in Białystok, now Poland, a formerly multiethnic, multireligious, and polyglot city in the Russian Empire, Ludwik Zamenhof (1859–1917) began already early on to think about a new, universally understandable language. Like some of his contemporaries, he hoped to improve international and ethnic relations through the development of a easily graspable universal language. He was convinced that “division and hate among the nations will completely disappear only when all of humanity will have one language and one religion.” In 1887, the son of a Yiddish-speaking mother and a usually Russian-speaking father published his “planned language” under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto (the hopeful). This would soon become the name of the invented language. Its logical structure and possibly also Zamenhof’s translation of the Hebrew Bible into Esperanto contributed to the fast dissemination of the language—and to the formation of an international movement propagating it. Already in 1905, the first World Esperanto Congress took place in Boulogne-sur-Mer, which was followed by annual conventions around the world.
Esperanto had the potential of becoming a common language in a united Europe. Yet, politics and language is always also a matter of power. Hence, several national languages have prevailed for use in EU bodies and not Esperanto. However, UNESCO has paid tribute to the significance of this linguistic utopia. Zamenhof’s death anniversary was included in the official list of UNESCO commemoration days for 2017. Then again, the Białystok municipal government failed to display any particular interest in the city’s illustrious son who had worked to enable Europeans to better understand each other. When in 2016, a motion was made in the municipal council to commemorate him with an official program on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his passing in 2017, it was rejected with the votes of the national-conservative PiS (“Law and Justice”) party. Esperanto, it was argued, had no longer any significance today. This decision was originally reported only in several Polish newspapers. However, when this was brought to international attention by the newsagency Agence France-Presse and then by Yahoo, reports about Ludwik Zamenhof’s repudiated heritage and the PiS party’s nationalist anti-Semitism were published all over the world.
Liliana Feierstein (Berlin): About Esperanto as a Jewish, European, and International language
Alfred Otto Munk: letter to his father Hans Munk, after April 10, 1938. Jewish Museum Hohenems
On the day of the pseudo-democratic referendum on Austria’s “Anschluss” to the German Reich on April 10, 1938, Alfred Otto Munk (1925 – 2002) and his 23-year-old sister managed to escape near Lustenau to Switzerland. Their mother, Rega Brunner, daughter of Lucian Brunner, had organized a smuggler and forged papers and had the children picked up by car in Vienna. She herself had already fled Austria around the days of the “Anschluss” and was staying in Zurich. With two additional helpers, her children reached Swiss soil. The family left Zurich in October and immigrated to the USA where Alfred Otto Munk initially joined the US army. After war end, he studied at Stanford and worked for decades in American oil companies. Alfred Otto Munk’s letter about his escape from Austria was addressed to his father, Hans Munk, who—divorced from Rega Brunner since 1926—had already moved to the USA in 1937 and was residing in California. In his agitation, Alfred Otto Munk apparently forgot to mention that the day of his escape from Austria had also been his 13th birthday.
Alfred Otto Munk, letter to his father, April 1938
Angiola Sartorio: collectable image from cigarette album. Jewish Museum Hohenems
Angiola Elise Sartorio (1903-1995) was the daughter of Julie Bonn and the Italian painter Giulio Aristide Sartorio. Her grandmother Elise Bonn, née Brunner, a sister of the “Triestine brothers” of the first generation, had married into the Frankfurt banking family Bonn. Following her parents’ separation and years spent in England and Sweden, Angiola Sartorio moved back to Germany where she became acquainted with the ideas of modern dance and entered the company of Kurt Jooss, a student of the influential dance theoretician Rudolf von Laban, to eventually embark on a remarkable career as choreographer and dancer. In 1933, she created a choreography for Max Reinhardt’s Italian stage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Florence. She rejected, however, Reinhardt’s invitation to accompany him to the USA. She had just opened a dance school of her own in Florence where numerous dancers fleeing from Germany and Austria had found work starting in 1933. In 1939, Angiola Sartorio decided to flee to the USA herself, first to New York, then to Santa Barbara where she continued teaching dance and choreography. She remained professionally active until the end of her life and took a stand for minorities and civil rights.
Cup and saucer of Gina Segré-Brunner. Jewish Museum Hohenems, Carlo Alberto Brunner Estate
Gina Segrè (1867-1948) descended from a Jewish industrialist family from Trieste. Her brother, Salvatore Segrè, got involved already early on in the irredentist movement, which demanded Trieste’s disengagement from the Habsburg Empire and annexation to Italy, while the growing number of Slovenian laborers in the city championed the Pan-Slavic movement. For his aid to refugees who had fled the Austrian army in World War I, he was ennobled and made a baron, henceforth carrying the name Segrè-Sartorio. His sister, Gina, who had married Rodolfo Brunner in 1888, was also a passionate adherent of irredentism (the movement of the “unredeemed”) and was thus in political opposition to her husband. Rodolfo and Gina Brunner had four children, their older son, Guido, was killed in battle against Austria in World War I; from then on, his parents hardly spoke with each other anymore. In 1937, Gina Brunner was appointed president of the national association of mothers and widows of war victims. The tableware features the Segrès’ old family coat of arms “Omnia pro patria libenter.”
Installation Europe Boundless. Photo: Dietmar Walser
Since the 15th century, the interest of the European powers had been concentrated on overseas areas. This was owed to scientific curiosity, missionary fervor, craving for power, and—most of all— greed. Indigenous populations frequently paid for European ambitions with their life or their labor while the local elites would often collaborate with their new masters. All European maritime powers were colonial powers, even though some—such as Germany—only for a brief period.
With the attainment of independence from Spain, the Netherlands had started already in the early 17thcentury to build a colonial empire. Part of it was, for instance, the “Dutch East Indies,” today’s Indonesia, whose population had to carry out forced labor for the Netherlands’ benefit over centuries. One of the early European critics of colonialism was David Wijnkoop (1876–1941) who espoused a democratic Indonesia. The son of a prominent rabbi founded the Communist Party of Holland and its party organ “De Tribune.” The magazine vehemently supported the Indonesian independence movement and aimed for its readership to solidarize with the island peoples.
“pursuant to Art.3 of the European Human Rights Convention, the repatriating state must prevent any ill-treatment in the country of destination
acquiescence to refoulement to the torturing country of origin violates against Art.3 of the European Human Rights Convention
collective expulsions also on the high seas and of boat people violate against Art.4 of the Fourth Protocol to the European Human Rights Convention
boat people can avail themselves of remedies against their refoulement pursuant to Art. 13 of the European Human Rights Convention.”
Implementation of the European Union’s commitment as formulated in the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon to accede to the Human Rights Convention has been blocked to this day—repeated avowals to do so notwithstanding. Could it be that then also an independent monitoring body would have to scrutinize the actions and credibility of the member states?
