There are such places where you can acutely perceive events of the past, where you can feel the pain and injustice, but at the same time, those are the places where you understand how to create your own future and avoid unforgivable mistakes. In Austria, too, there is such a place, which allows you to see the past and enter into dialogue with it...

Jewish Museum Hohenems was opened in 1991. It is located in the villa of Heimann-Rosenthal in the center of a former Jewish quarter of the Austrian city Hohenems. The villa of the Heimann-Rosenthal family, with its incredibly warm atmosphere, could have become a separate exhibition. It was built in 1864 per the project of a famous Swiss architect Felix Wilhelm Kubly and named in honor of the daughter of the owner, who was a textile manufacturer Anton Rosenthal, Clara Heimann-Rosenthal.

In 1936, Clara Heimann-Rosenthal sold the villa to a doctor of the Hohenems Jewish community. By mutual agreement, she continued to stay in the house until 1940, when, along with other Jewish residents, she was deported to Vienna. Consequently, she was killed in a concentration camp in 1942. New owners saved her old clothes, which were transferred to her family after the end of the war. A part of them is in the modern museum. In 1983, the doctor’s family sold the villa to the city authorities.

The opening of a museum had been discussed for more than 10 years by that time, and when the right territory was obtained, that idea came into reality. After the restoration of the building, which was conducted by an Austrian architect Roland Gnaiger, in 1989, a group of architects and designers, headed by Kurt Greussing, started implementing the project. In 1991, it was successfully finished.

Since its opening, the museum has been gathering its collection, which has been enriched, thanks to numerous donations of the Jewish ancestors of the Hohenems community. Here, you can see everyday items, personal things, photos and documentary materials, which demonstrate the intense life of the Jewish diaspora at that time.