Conscience

Arti­cles (in German & English) and a power point presen­ta­tion, radio and TV interviews

Archive – a collec­tion of works

German version: Tanya Ury and Amin Farzanefar, editor: Amin Farzanefar

Need­less to say, when treat­ment was so frequent, there could be no ques­tion of proper docu­men­ta­tion or assess­ment of the therapy; and that was what happened with your great-uncle too. Besides, said Dr Abramsky, all of the mate­rial on file – the case histo­ries and the medical records Fahn­stock kept on a daily basis, albeit in a distinctly cursory fashion – have prob­ably long since been eaten by the mice. They took over the madhouse when it was closed and have been multi­plying without cease ever since; at all events, on nights when there is no wind blowing I can hear a constant scur­rying and rustling in the dried-out shell of the building, and at times, when a full moon rises beyond the trees, I imagine I can hear the pathetic song of a thou­sand tiny upraised throats. Nowa­days I place all my hope in the mice, and in the wood­worm and death­watch beetles. The sana­to­rium is creaking, and in places already caving in, and sooner or later they will bring about its collapse. I have a recur­ring dream of that collapse, said Dr Abramsky, gazing at the palm of his left hand as he spoke. I see the sana­to­rium on its lofty rise, see every­thing simul­ta­ne­ously, the building as a whole and also the minutest detail; and I know that the wood­work, the roof beams, door posts and panelling, the floor­boards and stair­cases, the rails and banis­ters, the lintels and ledges, have already been hollowed out under the surface, and that at any moment, as soon as the chosen one amongst the blind armies of beetles dispatches the very last, scarcely mate­rial resis­tance with its jaws, the entire lot will come down. And that is precisely what does happen in my dream, before my very eyes, infi­nitely slowly, and a great yellowish cloud billows out and disperses, and where the sana­to­rium once stood there is merely a heap of powder-fine wood dust, like pollen.”

P. 112 – 113, The Emigrants, W.G. Sebald, 1992, trans­la­tion 1993, Vintage Books 2002, ISBN 9780099448884

On the 3rd of March 2009 the Histor­ical Archives of the City of Cologne, the largest archive in Germany collapsed. A thou­sand years of German history, from hand­written docu­ments of the Middle Ages, to the private effects of 900 Cologne person­al­i­ties, authors like Hein­rich Böll, Günter Wallraf, Irmgard Keun, the composers Jacques Offen­bach and Max Bruch — was all buried under a pile of rubble.

After my mother’s death in London ten years ago, I brought several gener­a­tions of my fami­lies’ effects back to Germany, from where those who survived had fled the Nazis. I decided on specif­i­cally this archive because most of the family came from Cologne, and because the effects of my great uncle Wilhelm Unger had already been put in safe­keeping there after his death in 1985.

Our personal archive included, not only orig­inal scores of my father’s two operas and other musical compo­si­tions, and my grandfather’s film scripts, but also photographs and letters of family murdered in Nazi Germany. We have no copies of any of these documents.

A new under­ground line was being built by the Cologne trans­port company (KVB), too close to the archive; cracks had been observed, reported and for incon­ceiv­able reasons ignored, already long before the catastrophe:

(Dr. Eber­hard) Illner had already estab­lished cracks from subsi­dence in the cellar, the summer of last year, and even informed the Archive direc­tors. He was the Archive depart­mental director for estates, collec­tions and photog­raphy, and now runs the Histor­ical Centre in Wuppertal.” www​.bild​.de (trans­la­tion T.U.)

With various media I will be under­taking research and reporting on what has become of the family archive buried under the weight of its own history.


Festi­vals & Events

2009 (16.8) Trapped” Cologne authors, priests and politi­cians on the collapse of the City Archives, 3 pm Basi­lika St. Severin, Im Ferkulum 29, 50678 Köln: Tanya Ury: The souls of my dead rela­tives. The Loss of the Ury/​Unger family estate. 4.30 pm Sever­ing­tor­burg, Chlod­wig­platz 2, 50677 Köln: Tanya Ury: reading from Alfred H. Unger’s The Stories of the Great Nazarene (1926) www​.koeln​-journal​.de/i…

2009 (24.8) Action: Köln Kann Auch Anders (Cologne can do it better), 6 pm, Tanya Ury reading (20 minutes) in front of the Cologne Town Hall, on the collapse of the City Archives – The Souls of my Dead Rela­tives. The Loss of the Ury-Unger family archive, Cologne (D)

www​.koelnkan​nauchan​ders​.de

insid​e​cologne​.de/​de/ku…

2010 (3.3.) Tanya Ury: Presen­ta­tion of The Souls of my dead rela­tives”. The Loss of the Jewish Ury/​Unger family estate. – lost in the City Archives. Reading: Gewissen (Conscience), Rubble and Shame” – A year after the Collapse of the Histor­ical Archives. KÖLN KANN AUCH ANDERS (Cologne can do better), Aura 09 & Kölner Komment (Cologne Comments), 7.30 pm Odeon Cinema, Severin Street 81, Cologne (D)


Publi­ca­tions & Press

Publi­ca­tions & Press

2009 (19.3) Tanya Ury, radio inter­view with Annette Hager, 6.088 pm, Reso­nanzen WDR 3, on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) Cologne (D)

www​.wdr​.de/​t​h​e​m​e​n​/glob…

2009 (18.7) Tele­vi­sion inter­view (recorded 15.6) with Achim Zeil­mann of Aspekte ZDF Hilfeschreie aus Papier” (Paper Cries for Help), 3 pm (repeated on days following): report on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) Cologne (D)

2009 (28.8) Tele­vi­sion inter­view with Theo Roos, 7.20 pm, Kulturzeit – Köln Reloaded, 3 Sat, report on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) Cologne (D)

archiv​.twoday​.net/topi… wstreaming​.zdf​.de/3sat…

www​.3sat​.de/​d​y​n​a​m​ic/si…

2009 (6.10) Article by Helga Humbach, on the Aura event (16.8.): Trapped” Tanya Ury and Cologne authors, priests and politi­cians on the collapse of the City Archives, in ver.di-Zeitschrift Kunst & Kultur (Art & Culture Maga­zine), Cologne (D)

2010 (12) Juli­ette Brungs seminar on Dischereit and Ury’s archive-related work, confer­ence in Boston (USA)

Artist’s Writ­ings & Publications 

2009 (22.4) Cologne’s Conscience” (German), article on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) by Ury in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (Cologne City Adver­tiser) (D): Guten Morgen Köln!“ (Good morning Cologne!) online 22nd April from 9 am

www​.ksta​.de/​h​t​m​l​/​artik…
2009 (25.5)
Conscience 2” (German), 2nd article on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) by Ury in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (Cologne City Adver­tiser) (D): Guten Morgen Köln!“ (Good morning Cologne!) online 25th May from 9 am

www​.ksta​.de/​h​t​m​l​/​artik…

2009 (16.7) Conscience 3” (German), 3rd article (short­ened version) on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) by Ury in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (Cologne City Adver­tiser) (D): Guten Morgen Köln!“ (Good morning Cologne!) online from ca. 9 am under the news heading: www​.ksta​.de/​h​t​m​l​/​seite…  

also: www​.ksta​.de/​h​t​m​l​/​artik…

2009 (12.8) Conscience 4” (German), 4th article on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) by Ury in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (Cologne City Adver­tiser) (D): Guten Morgen Köln!“ (Good morning Cologne!) online from ca. 9 am under the news heading: www​.ksta​.de/​g​u​t​e​n​m​orgen www​.ksta​.de/​h​t​m​l​/​artik…

2009 (25.8) Conscience” arti­cles on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives) by Ury, on the website Köln kann auch anders” (Cologne can do better) (D) www​.koelnkan​nauchan​ders​.de

2019 (from 27.2.) Conscience 5, article (German: Gewissen 5) on the collapse of the Historisches Archiv (Histor­ical Archives of the City of Cologne) and its devas­tating conse­quences for the Ury family legacy, ten years on, by Ury, published together with Conscience 1 – 4, 2009, online by Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Arbeit­er­fo­tografie (New Rhenish Gazette, Workers Photog­raphy) (D) at these links: 

Gewissen (Conscience) 5 from 27.02.2019: www​.nrhz​.de/​f​l​y​e​r​/beit…

Gewissen (Conscience) 1 from 07.03.2019: www​.nrhz​.de/​f​l​y​e​r​/beit…

Gewissen (Conscience) 2 from 14.03.2019: www​.nrhz​.de/​f​l​y​e​r​/beit…

Gewissen (Conscience) 3 from 20.03.2019: www​.nrhz​.de/​f​l​y​e​r​/beit…

Gewissen (Conscience) 4 from 30.03.2019: www​.nrhz​.de/​f​l​y​e​r​/beit…

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