Project highlights Nazi persecution and violence against homeless people

An exhibition at the University of Innsbruck examines the persecution of homeless people under Nazi rule and draws attention to violence against people without housing today, ORF Tirol reported. The project, organised by social services association DOWAS and the university, also includes talks, school tours and an event at a memorial.

The exhibition is on the first floor of the university’s Àgnes-Heller-Haus, between seminar rooms and study spaces. It uses information panels, historical documents and photographs to describe the persecution of people who were not settled in one place, including beggars, itinerant workers and people living in precarious conditions.

The travelling exhibition, “Homeless people under National Socialism”, was brought to Tyrol by DOWAS, the university’s Institute of Contemporary History and its Institute of Educational Science. It is making its second stop in Innsbruck. Social worker Peter Grüner of DOWAS said it had lost none of its relevance since it was first shown there in the early 2000s.

The project also focuses on present-day violence against homeless people, who Grüner said are often left exposed to attacks when they have to sleep in public spaces. The exhibition is part of the series “Who carries the fire?”, held every two years in remembrance of Wolfgang Tschernutter.

A memorial to Tschernutter, a homeless man murdered in Innsbruck in February 1994, stands on Franz-Gschnitzer-Promenade behind the university. It has commemorated his death for more than 30 years.

The exhibition also recounts the case of Karoline G., a 19-year-old from Duisburg who was classified by the Nazi authorities as “asocial”. After being placed in preventive detention in November 1941, she was deported to Auschwitz. The camp commandant reported her death a year later.

People from the Jenische community were also persecuted in the Tyrol-Vorarlberg region, according to Bernhard Schneider of the Jenische Archive Innsbruck. Nazi authorities used official labels to restrict people’s work and housing opportunities, then intensified that persecution, in some cases to murder, he said.