Henry Koerner’s “Unheimliche Heimat”: Talk & Film Screening at the Graz International Summer School Seggau
As guest lecturer in the seminar “Literature and Culture of Memory” of the 20th edition of the Graz International Summer School Seggau, Florian Traussnig presented the dazzling, traumatic and somewhat surreal biography of Henry Koerner (1915-1991) to a group of students.
After Traussnig’s talk on the years of exile and war experienced by this Austrian born Jewish Holocaust survivor, refugee, graphic designer, World War II poster artist, soldier in the U.S. Army, and outstanding (Pittsburgh-based) painter, the subtle documentary “The Burning Child” by filmmaker & Harvard art historian Joseph L. Koerner was shown: “Haunted by his father’s portrait of his grandparents who vanished in the Holocaust, Joseph Koerner returns to Vienna to solve their mystery.” (Amazon Prime).
After the screening, the filmmaker joined the seminar session via zoom and addressed the summer school students’ existential and sensitive questions on Henry Koerner’s family history, on the latters “unheimliche Heimat” Vienna, and discussed with the group art that “sends shock waves from the past” (Joseph Koerner), and the potentials of “mnemonic recuperation” via filmic means. Simplistic answers to burning questions were not given, and “the brute [historical] fact that the film really couldn’t enter the interior that motivated it” (J.K.), could not be put aside, but the atmosphere of the conversation was inspiring, even joyful: “All life is miraculous” (Henry Koerner)
