Host Country Belgium – PaulusRundbrief Nº495
When you drive from the Flemish countryside to the city of Brussels, you are greeted at the city limits by posters that welcome you in four languages – that inspired the title for this Paulus Newsletter’s theme: La Belgique – Pays d’Accueil ! … Belgium has always been a destination for the politically persecuted …
Refuge Atelier Marcel Hastir
In this newsletter ‘Zufluchtsort Atelier’ (Refuge Atelier) by Susanne Fexer on the atelier of Marcel Hastir in Brussels, Belgium, where he helped save the lives of countless people during the Nazi terror.
Credits | Links
Text based on quotes (translated) from the Editorial by Annick Dohet-Gremminger in the bimonthly Paulus newsletter (PaulusRundbrief N°495) of the Katholische Gemeinde Deutscher Sprache Brüssel Sankt Paulus – the Catholic Community German Language Brussels St. Paulus.
PaulusRundbrief N°495 is available digital from the archive at the Sankt Paulus site – http://www.sankt-paulus.eu
Film : Refuge Atelier Marcel Hastir – Paulus Newsletter (20191004) Michel van der Burg | miracles.media
Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild – JR: Chronicles in Brooklyn Museum
Excited to announce the screening of our short documentary film ‘Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild’ starting the night of October 3rd, 2019 in the Brooklyn Museum in New York at the special exhibition JR: Chronicles – a major show that surveys the complete body of work of the artist JR for the first time in North America.
Best of INSIDE OUT – Justice For Afghan Refugees In Belgium
One of JR’s major projects is the global participatory art project INSIDE OUT, and the film ‘Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild’ documents one of the Inside Out projects ‘Justice For Afghan Refugees In Belgium’ – that was chosen as one of the favorite Inside Out Group Actions.
Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition
Visiting the Brooklyn Museum in New York, it was exciting to see the JR: Chronicles and our film at the museum’s impressive video wall. However, we noticed the original Vimeo film version (20160620) was screening at the museum’s video wall, not the museum edition* we had prepared (with title and endscreen updates). A minor mistake but also an opportunity we got for another update in a new edition, called the : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition (20200205).
This new edition is archived in JR’s project INSIDE OUT, and is being forwarded to the Brooklyn Museum to hopefully soon allow replacing the current version – running for another three months…untill May 3, 2020 .
Beguinage Project
In March 2014 Kristen Cattell (USA) and Michel van der Burg (Holland) traveled to Brussels to meet a group of Afghans living inside an old Catholic church – the church of Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage (Beguinage Church). At the time, nearly one hundred Afghan refugees had set up camp within the walls of the seventeenth century compound. We made a reportage over several days and interviewed several people including Samir Hamdard – the spokesperson for these afghan refugees – who died recently following a house fire.
In between these interviews, Michel visited the artist Olivier Bonny in the nearby artist village Ateliers Mommen in Saint-Josse (Brussels) and filmed the InsideOut installation outside on the facade of the Mommen building – portraits of Afghans living in the Beguinage church.
Sans frontières ! Borderless ! Zonder Grenzen !
That InsideOut project was inaugurated a few days earlier at the Borderless ! festival in the Ateliers Mommen – a festival of 4 days of solidarity with Afghan asylum seekers , March 2014 in Salon Mommen, Saint-Josse, Brussels, Belgium.
CREDITS
JR’s project INSIDE OUT
JR: Chronicles | Brooklyn Museum | October 4, 2019 – May 3, 2020
Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild
Afghan refugees living in the Brussels Béguinage church with posters by Chiara Ravano for the Inside Out project
“Justice for Afghan refugees in Belgium” – Olivier Bonny, Salon Mommen, Brussels, Belgium, March 2014.
Félix Snyers on the Béguinage church pipe organ. A Beguinage Project report by Kristen Cattell & Michel van der Burg.
Film : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition (20200205) Michel van der Burg | miracles.media
Links
*) Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild – 2019 Brooklyn Museum edition (20190911). Posted online October 3, 2019. From Feb. 5, 2020 status has been changed to ‘private; at Vimeo and Youtube.
Replaced Feb. 5, 2020 by film : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR_ Chronicles Edition (20200205) . Online at YouTube
Oct 4, 2019 – Added News section with JR’s opening tweet
Oct 6, 2019 – Added Beguinage Project section and updated credits section
Feb 5, 2020 – Post edited , with news on our museum visit, and the new film edition shared : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR_ Chronicles Edition (20200205)
Berlin’s “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe” filmed September 2013. Film ① memo 20190911 Michel van der Burg – michelvanderburg.com | 1-memo.com | miracles.media
November 1935, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the NIHS Jewish Community of Amsterdam (orthodox Ashkenazi congregation started 1635) the dutch film factory Polygoon brought this unique cinema sound newsreel of the Amsterdam Choir of the Great Synagogue led by choirmaster Samuel Henri (Sam) Englander, with a solo perfomance by chazzan (cantor) Izrael Eljasz Maroko in the Great Synagogue (inauguration building 1671) – now home to the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, Holland (Ref 1).
As the Amsterdamsche Joodsche Koor (Amsterdam Jewish Choir), the choir also performed in non-religious venues, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (Ref 2). The choir’s repertoire was expanded to include what were referred to as Eastern European Jewish folksongs and modern Palestinian-Jewish songs (i.e., contemporary Hebrew songs). The Choir of the Great Synagogue and Amsterdam Jewish Choir was composed of the following singers (those marked with an asterisk sang during synagogue services):
Giacomo Aletrino (tenor) Marcus Bonn (bass) Joop Delcanho* (tenor) David Duque (bass) Michel Gobets (tenor) Nathan Gobets Sr.* (tenor) Barend Levie Muller* (bass) Meijer Nebig* (baritone) Lou Nieweg* (tenor) David Peeper* (baritone) Louis Polak (bass) Jo Rabbie* (baritone) Sal Stodel (baritone) Bernard de Wit (bass) Louis de Wit* (bass) Of all of them, only Lou Nieweg is known to have survived the Second World War.
NL (dutch)
November 1935, ter gelegenheid van het 300-jarig bestaan van de NIHS Joodse Gemeenschap van Amsterdam (de Asjkenazische gemeente Amsterdam of ‘Nederlands Israëlitische Hoofd Synagoge’) kwam het Polygoon bioscoopjournaal met deze unieke geluidsfilm van het Amsterdams Koor der Grote Synagoge onder leiding van koordirigent Samuel Henri (Sam) Englander, met een solo van oppervoorzanger Izrael Eljasz Maroko in de Grote Synagoge in Amsterdam (inwijding gebouw 1671) – nu het Joods Historisch Museum (Ref 1).
Het koor trad ook op als het Amsterdamsche Joodsche Koor op niet-religieuze locaties, waaronder het Amsterdamse Concertgebouw (Ref 2). Het uitgebreide repertoire van het koor omvatte ook zogenaamde Oost-Europese Joodse volksliederen en moderne Palestijnse-Joodse liederen (d.w.z. hedendaagse Hebreeuwse liederen). Het Koor der Grote Synagoge en het Amsterdam Joods Koor bestond uit de volgende zangers (die met een asterisk gemarkeerd, zongen tijdens synagoge-diensten):
Giacomo Aletrino (tenor) Marcus Bonn (bas) Joop Delcanho * (tenor) David Duque (bas) Michel Gobets (tenor) Nathan Gobets Sr. * (tenor) Barend Levie Muller * (bas) Meijer Nebig * (bariton) Lou Nieweg * (tenor) David Peeper * (bariton) Louis Polak (bas) Jo Rabbie * (bariton) Sal Stodel (bariton) Bernard de Wit (bas) Louis de Wit * (bas) Alleen van Lou Nieweg is bekend dat hij de Tweede Wereldoorlog heeft overleefd.
Notes
1. De Eerste Zichtbare Synagoge Van West-Europa. Amsterdam (Netherlands) : Joods Historisch Museum | jck.nl ; (accessed 2019 Aug 30). Link URL: https://jck.nl/nl/longread/de-grote-synagoge
Tea is served in one of the tents of the Afghan refugees camp inside the Béguinage church in Brussels – April 2014 More about the Beguinage Project here http://bit.ly/1HZguvY
20190827 ~ Tea in Afghan Refugees Camp Tent in Brussels Church ~ Michel van der Burg – michelvanderburg.com | miracles.media
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism – located between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany – filmed in 2013.
The monument is dedicated to the memory of the estimated 500,000 European Roma and Sinti that were murdered during the Holocaust – called Porajmos or Pharrajimos in the Romani language (“the Devouring” or “Destruction”) – the genocide of the European Sinti and Roma peoples by the German Nazis and their fascist allies ( http://www.romasintigenocide.eu/en/home ).
The memorial by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan consists of a circular pool of water with a triangular stone in the center upon which a fresh flower is placed daily.
At the site you hear the sound, a note of a lonely violin from a composition/sound installation titled “Mare Manuschenge” / “Our People” by Romeo Franz, a Sinto musician, composer and politician in Germany.
Karavan : „dem Klang einer einsamen Geige allein geblieben von der gemordeten Melodie, schwebend im Schmerz“
Romeo Franz:
Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of the Sinti and Roma, called me in 2012 and said he was looking for a violinist who could play just one single note at the ceremony. I tried, but at some point I couldn’t stand this note any longer. Instead I imitated a whistle that Sinti often use to call their children. It’s a sound that each of us recognise, it’s a bit like a mark of identification, a signal. Then I transposed it onto the gypsy minor scale. Shortly before the memorial was completed, I met with Dani Caravan, the Israeli architect who designed the memorial, at the construction site, and he said, “That’s it!” For me, it was possibly the most significant thing I’ve ever achieved in my life.
From : The Handreader’s Tale via https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/en/magazine/magazine_26-1/the_handreaders_tale.html
Note
Yesterday – August 4, 2019 – a more subjective short film impression of the memorial was posted see ‘Porajmos Memorial Sinti Roma Europe’ ~ https://settela.com/2019/08/04/porajmos-memorial-sinti-roma-europe/ More information on this memorial also in that 20190804 post.
Film: Mare Manuschenge | Music Roma Memorial Berlin | 20190805 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com – CC BY 4.0
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism, filmed in 2013 in the Tiergarten (close to other Holocaust memorials) in Berlin – between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, in Germany.
The monument is dedicated to the memory of the estimated 500,000 European Roma and Sinti that were murdered during the Holocaust – called Porajmos or Pharrajimos in the Romani language (“the Devouring” or “Destruction”) – the genocide of the European Sinti and Roma peoples by the German Nazis and their fascist allies ( http://www.romasintigenocide.eu/en/home ).
August 2 is European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day commemorating this genocide of Roma people during World War II. Declared by the European Parliament in 2015 (Resolution 2015/2615), the day marks the anniversary of the extermination of around 3,000 Roma at Auschwitz-Birkenau during the night of 2 August 1944. The so-called Gypsy Camp in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp was dissolved – or “liquidated,” as the SS called it.
Settela Steinbach (9) was one of those murdered early August 1944, now 75 years ago.
The memorial (by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan) consists of a circular pool of water with a triangular stone in the center (not shown in this film) upon which a fresh flower is placed daily.
Film: Porajmos Memorial Sinti Roma Europe | 20190804 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com – CC BY 4.0
Poem “Auschwitz” by Santino Spinelli
In a ring around the pond in English and German – and in two Romani dialects on a stone – are the words of the poem “Auschwitz” by Santino Spinelli (artist name Alexian), a Rom from the Abruzzi region of Italy – a musician, poet, teacher, composer and essayist.
Auschwitz (Original)
Muj šukkó, kjá kalé vušt šurde; kwit. Jilo čindó bi dox, bi lav, nikt ruvbé.
Auschwitz (Deutsch)
Eingefallenes Gesicht, erloschene Augen, kalte Lippen. Stille. Ein zerrissenes Herz, ohne Atem, ohne Worte, keine Tränen.
Auschwitz (English)
Pallid face, dead eyes, cold lips. Silence. A broken heart without breath, without words, no tears.
Music “Mare Manuschenge” by Romeo Franz
At the site you faintly hear the sound, a note of a lonely violin from a composition/sound installation titled “Mare Manuschenge” / “Our People” by Romeo Franz, a Sinto musician, composer and politician in Germany.
The sound in this film I posted is mixed from several video recordings there, with the emphasis on the sound from one video of one of the loudspeakers in the surrounding trees.
