THE LOOP HOLE

Synagoge Coesfeld

Premiere: 22.08-30.08 2020

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This sound installation is supposed to be the first in the life of the Coesfeld community in the years before World War II. One example is the story of Fred Hertz and his family. An interview with Fred Hertz was used for this installation with the kind support and help of Norbert Damberg (Coesfeld City Archives) and staff from the University of California Archives. In the conversation initiated and documented by the Shoah Foundation in 1997, he documented his own history and that of his family.

A tape loop-is a piece of magnetic tape that is attached to a certain length, taped together and placed in a cassette housing. Working with tapes means belonging with loops - a phenomenon that we hear again and again in pop culture, but also in personal music. When I begin to listen carefully to my environment and everything I was surrounded by and to detach some parts from the acoustic whole, the normal routine stopped, the gaze becomes itself and when I can grasp the uniqueness and beauty of a moment for a moment. Doesn't our whole life move in loops? In always the same ways and actions? For me it is also a quick logical consequence to imitate this trail after taxes, to have the right to belong, to "let the time stand still" on this path.

The Hertz family represented Spain in 1492 resisting anti-Semitic pogroms and fled to Coesfeld. A small Jewish community had established itself as part of the city since the 13th century and like many Jewish citizens of Germany, the Hertz family saw themselves as part of a bourgeois, German culture. In addition to an international chilled meat company, the family also owns a certain horse trade in Münster and the German army. Fred Hertz, his parents and siblings managed to leave Germany in 1938/39 under personal supervision and to immigrate to Israel and the USA.

The Coesfeld synagogue is still intact today. During the Reich Progrom Night on November 9, 1938, the apartments of all rights citizens in Coesfeld were quickly stormed by uniformed but also civilly dressed perpetrators, administered and in some cases plotted, and the interior of the synagogue was preserved. Paul Vagedes that is the right that the Coesfeld doctor Dr. Paul Vagedes that is what concerns the rights of the Synagogue Foundation.

* Loophole A loophole is, in the narrower sense, a passage or place through which you can only get into or out of the speaker by bending the speaker. In the true sense, it is also a possibility for humans or animals to change a danger, dangerous situation, a loss, etc., etc. (e.g. "lock through the meshes of conscience", "find a loophole in the law", keep loopholes open, etc.).

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