Ritula Frankel

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Ritula Fränkel (born November 6, 1952 in Darmstadt ; † January 14, 2015 in Darmstadt) was a German installation artist and visual artist .

Life

She grew up with her younger brother in a Jewish family in Darmstadt. Her parents Johanna, geb. Hornung (1925–2018) and the engineer Josef Fränkel (1920–1994), both survivors of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp , were active on the board of the Darmstadt Jewish community, which they had significantly rebuilt after the Second World War.

After childhood and youth in Darmstadt, Ritula Fränkel lived in Jamaica for 22 years . She was married to Nicholas Morris (* 1967 in Kingston, Jamaica), an artist and graduate of Dartmouth College ( BA ), Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art / University of Dundee in Scotland ("Postgraduate Diploma in Visual Art") and Stanford University (MFA) . From 1995 to 2001 he taught painting and installation at the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston . In 2001 the couple settled in Darmstadt. As a result, in addition to their own artistic work, they created workshops with students on Jewish history, lectures and teaching activities, joint installations and art projects, such as the “Gedächtzeichen Güterbahnhof”. Funded by the Moldau Scholarship of the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art , they worked together in 2005/2006 at the Egon Schiele Art Centrum in Český Krumlov, Czech Republic . From 2008 to 2009 they developed the artistic and didactic concept for the “Liberal Synagogue Darmstadt Place of Remembrance”. In 2013 they dedicated themselves to the establishment of the Jewish Museum in Darmstadt.

Shaped by her Jewish parents and the efforts to rebuild the Jewish community, Ritula Fränkel's art installations are mostly related to Jewish culture and history. "Your commitment to the culture of remembrance and to Jewish life in Darmstadt has always been based on the desire for understanding and the demand to learn about historical contexts."

Ritula Fränkel died in January 2015 after a long illness. Her grave is in the Jewish cemetery in Darmstadt-Bessungen .

Exhibitions and works in public spaces

X-ODUS

For the exhibition X-ODUS, Ritula Fränkel and Nicholas Morris created “a visual memory diary in four chapters: survival, resurrection, survival, new life” from personal items, photos and documents as well as from the stories of survivors of the Shoah. In addition, an interactive cube puzzle shows Berlin synagogues around 1885, their condition after the war and the topping-out ceremony of the New Synagogue Oranienburger Straße in 1990. The exhibition was shown in 2001/2002 in the Darmstadt synagogue and the former synagogue in Pfungstadt and in 2004 in the Jewish Museum Berlin .

Josef's coat

The work Josefs Mantel by the artist couple from 2001 is part of the permanent exhibition in the House of European History in Brussels, subject section “Reconstruction of a divided continent”.

Freight station memorial

Gedenkort Güterbahnhof Darmstadt4.JPG
Gedenkort Güterbahnhof Darmstadt3.JPG

In 2004, together with her husband, she took over the artistic design and implementation of the "Denkzeichen Güterbahnhof" on the Deutsche Bahn AG site at the Darmstadt freight station at the corner of Bismarckstrasse and Kirschenallee. The public memorial commemorates the more than 3,000 Jews, Sinti and Roma who were deported from the former Darmstadt freight yard in cattle wagons to concentration camps and were victims of the Holocaust . Since 2002, the “Initiative Denkzeichen Güterbahnhof” had been trying to create a memorial at the point of departure of the deportation. On a piece of track that is filled with gravel and ends at a rusted buffer stop, there is a 800 kilogram glass cube made of bulletproof glass , each with a side length of 150 cm. To prevent the cube from fogging up from the inside, the artists worked with the glass construction company Derix from Taunusstein to develop a construction that ventilates and dehumidifies the memorial from below. Inside there are engraved broken glass, consisting of intentionally broken glass panes, which were previously inscribed with hundreds of names from 1942 and 1943 Jews and Sinti deported from Darmstadt and the former state of Hesse . In 2006 the cube was badly damaged and had to be completely renewed in 2012/2013. In 2013, one side of the glass cube was damaged by vandalism, but following the artist's request, the traces were not removed. Due to construction work on Bismarckstrasse, the memorial was moved to the grounds of the Jewish Community of Darmstadt on Wilhelm-Glässing-Strasse in 2014. In 2017 it was able to be set up again at its original location.

Place of remembrance Liberal Synagogue Darmstadt

Liberal Synagogue Darmstadt4.JPG

After the remains of the Liberal Synagogue, which burned down during the November pogroms in 1938 , were discovered during excavation work for a new building in the municipal clinic , the City of Darmstadt's magistrate convened a round table to design a memorial inside the planned hospital building. Building on this, Ritula Fränkel and Nicolas Morris developed the conceptual and didactic design from 2006 on behalf of the City of Darmstadt. It includes a multimedia remembrance trail with ten stations, quotes embedded in the floor, a large-format historical view of the synagogue as a transparent photo print on the window front, information terminal, audio and film stations with eyewitness interviews, screens, video screens and installations with historical texts, images and Found objects. On November 9, 2009, the place of remembrance Liberal Synagogue Darmstadt was officially inaugurated.

Museum of the Jewish Community of Darmstadt

In 2013 the museum of the Jewish community in Darmstadt was reopened. To this end, Ritula Fränkel redesigned the showroom set up in 1991 on the first floor of the parish hall into an interactive learning space in which all exhibits can be touched within two years. "She also saw the museum as a place of learning, where the history of the Jews in Darmstadt can be learned, so as not to see Jewish life from the perspective of the" victim's view "and to convey everyday life and Jewish cultural life." The museum shows documents and cult objects found in Darmstadt Castle after the war, a facsimile copy of the late medieval Darmstadt Haggadah from 1430, which is kept in the University and State Library Darmstadt , the Torah cabinet from the first house of prayer after the Holocaust in the Osannstrasse as well as memorabilia, photos and documents. In 2015, a media table designed by the artist couple with two large touchscreens was added, which contains information, photos and animations about Jewish biographies, Jewish life in Darmstadt and the region.

Publications

  • Ritula Fränkel, Nicholas Morris: X-odus: Installation in the Jewish Community Center Darmstadt, June 10th-24th. July 2001 . Jewish Community Center Darmstadt, 2001
  • Ritula Fränkel, Nicholas Morris: The artistic concept for the “freight yard memorial ” . In: Renate Dreesen, Christoph Jetter: Darmstadt as a place of deportation: Denkzeichen Güterbahnhof: in memory of the Jews and Sinti who were deported from the former state of Hesse under the Nazi regime . Initiative "Gedenkort Güterbahnhof Darmstadt", 2004

Web links

Commons : Ritula Fränkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt : Jewish community . Retrieved September 30, 2017
  2. ↑ Hessian State Archive Darmstadt : She'erit Hapletah see the immigration permit for Johanna Frankel to study in Darmstadt
  3. ↑ Frankel, Josef. Hessian biography. (As of June 8, 2017). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h Press office of the city of Darmstadt: On the death of Ritula Fränkel . In: darmstadtnews.de from January 16, 2015. Retrieved July 15, 2020
  5. ^ Astrid Ludwig: Mourning for Johanna Fränkel . In: Jüdische Allgemeine, April 9, 2018. Retrieved January 19, 2018
  6. ^ A b c Nicholas Morris: Marginal Notes: Notes from the edge . In: Open Arts Journal , Issue 5, July 2016
  7. ↑ Nicholas Morris at the conference Sustainable Art Communities: Creativity and Policy in the Transnational Caribbean in the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, February 2013. Accessed July 14, 2020
  8. ↑ HLZ - journal of the GEW Hessen for upbringing, education, research: Further education: Sinti and Roma . 58th year, issue 11/12, Nov./Dec. 2005, p. 37
  9. ^ Egon Schiele Art Centrum: Artists . Retrieved October 4, 2017
  10. ↑ Information on the exhibition in the synagogue (Český Krumlov) , September 2005
  11. ^ Egon Schiele Art Centrum Český Krumlov: Symposium on the topic: Český Krumlov after the opening of the border - memories of Serge Sabarsky (1912-1996) , February 2006. Accessed on July 14, 2020
  12. ↑ Echo online: death notices Ritula Frankel . Retrieved October 4, 2017
  13. ↑ a b Jewish Museum Berlin: X-ODUS break open - linger - stay , exhibition May - August 2004
  14. ^ House of European History: Thematic section "Reconstruction of a divided continent" , permanent exhibition
  15. ↑ Astrid Ludwig: "Denkzeichen Güterbahnhof" in Darmstadt, 600 fragmented names of Jews, Sinti and Roma . In: Materialdienst Nr.5, 06/2004 , Evangelical Working Group Church and Israel in Hesse and Nassau
  16. ↑ Echo online: The renewed Darmstadt "Denkzeichen Güterbahnhof" returns to its location on Kirschenallee on February 24, 2017. Accessed on October 4, 2017
  17. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau: Memorial returned , from February 27, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2017
  18. ^ State working group of memorials and memorial initiatives during the Nazi era in Hesse (LAG): Gedichtzeichen Güterbahnhof Darmstadt . Retrieved October 4, 2017
  19. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau: Memorial will not be finished , October 28, 2008. Accessed October 4, 2017
  20. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Experience History , February 29, 2008, Volume 64, No. 51
  21. ^ Förderverein Liberale Synagoge Darmstadt eV: History of the Liberal Synagogue Darmstadt . Retrieved October 4, 2017
  22. ^ P-Stadtkulturmagazin: especially… Liberal Synagogue Issue 13, April 2009
  23. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Back in Life , February 2, 2013. Retrieved October 4, 2017
  24. ↑ Marc Mandel: A suitcase full of stories . In: Jüdische Allgemeine, February 7, 2013. Retrieved July 14, 2020
  25. ^ Astrid Ludwig: Digital memory . In: Jüdische Allgemeine, July 23, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Frankel, Ritula
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German visual artist
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 2015
Place of death Darmstadt