If you take the museum railway from Steyr south in the Traunviertel in the summer months, you will reach the Village named Grünburg. Here the Topothequers Renate Gassenbauer and Regina Teichmann presented the Topotheque to the interested public for the first time. Large-format historical photos decorated the room and the audience was vividly involved in the presentation. A journey through the collection – if we sort it by age – shows as the starting point the castle that gave it its name, then still spelled Grunenburg and probably also called something similar, and leads to almost 1,000 documents up to the present day. The selected cover photo here is intended to be representative of other photos of this type – also in other Topotheques. Many say: such photos have no value if you no longer know the people shown. Of course, only a few will recognize the couple who ran the former department store Schrack, Hermine and Franz Burgholzer. But beyond the persons, the picture is a testimony to the times that will trigger memories for many because they have experienced similar objects or moods themselves. Some will also say: “That looks like at my grandparents!” A closer look will reveal a seris of objects of interest: the shape of the garden fence (typical of the time), the folding chair, the naturally shiny clear varnish on the wood, the pattern of the dress (didn‘t my father have a tie made of the same material, which was 100% polyester – at least you couldn‘t sweat in a tie), the obligatory pressed glass vase, which you can no longer even find on the tables in the inn, the suspenders (my brother-in-law of my Grandmother wore them too) and the glasses, the frames of which were brown at the top and colorless at the bottom. Or were they even Nylor glasses with a plastic thread holding the glass? The necklace was probably made of amber, which was so common at the time and in which small prehistoric flies could sometimes be found. The wire mesh bench that stamped its pattern into the shirt, so that the old man looked like a freshly beaten schnitzel when he stood up. Just zeitgeist. And even if this photo no longer triggers any memories or at least associations, with all the everyday details it is even more of a contemporary witness to an era that has been forgotten. A contemporary witness to everyday life and normality, which makes up the actual “history”.
A few hours after the presentation, the first reaction came from the USA with additional comments and infectious joy about what had been collected and now archived…