Museum for everyday village culture
The museum for everyday village culture , which is located in the Rubenheim district of the municipality of Gersheim , documents the living conditions of “little people” in the Saar-Palatinate-Lorraine rural population. The museum wants to shed light on the everyday culture of the population between the Hunsrück and Lorraine with a focus on the Saarland .
Museum character
The museum was designed by Rubenheim's graduate industrial engineer and folklorist Gunter Altenkirch and gradually implemented. He set up the museum over the course of decades and guarantees its ongoing operation. The everyday life of the villagers of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially that of the lower social classes, should be documented and shown. They were used by day laborers , workers , farmers , craftsmen and vagabondsformed, i.e. the layers that are called "little people" in everyday parlance. Altenkirch had collected over 50,000 objects, 2,500 of which are on display in various special exhibitions and some permanent exhibitions.
The museum opened in 1988.
The House
The museum, in parts also used as a residential building, belongs to the "southwest German single house" category, which is characterized by the fact that stables and living quarters are next to each other. The house was built in the first half of the 18th century as an agricultural property, in later times it was used as an inn. In order to be able to use the house in a museum-friendly way, Altenkirch rebuilt the interior on a large scale. On three floors of the former farmhouse, which has already received a number of awards, objects of everyday use are shown on an area of 250 m²: agricultural implements, early plowing techniques, web processing, toilet and kitchen facilities and numerous other everyday utensils. In addition to the permanent exhibition, the museum repeatedly shows themed changing exhibitions (“Superstition and Magic in Rural Areas”, “Children's Toys in the 19th Century”). In the meantime, 27 special exhibitions have already been presented (as of 2011).
The museum houses another important collection. Using oral history surveys , which Altenkirch has been carrying out for decades, he is able to document the life stories of over 10,000 Saarlanders and access their individual data in a file with over 450,000 index cards.
literature
- Gräbner, Dieter: Local researcher as an eight-year-old. In: Saarbrücker Zeitung (Heimat) from April 30th / April 1st. May 2011, p. H4 (accessed on May 2, 2011)
Web links
- Museum for everyday village culture
- Biography Gunter Altenkirch in the Saarland Lexicon
- Literature on the museum for everyday village culture in the Saarland bibliography
Coordinates: 49 ° 10 ′ 25.6 ″ N , 7 ° 12 ′ 25.9 ″ E