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30 April 2024
Fashion.at visited the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut and came across the traces of women who were active in the resistance in the late 1930s and the 1940s.
(Continuation of the previous article: Fashion.at on Chiharu Shiota's 25-dress installation 'Where Are We Now?')
Fashion.at left the exhibition at the memorial tunnel of the Ebensee concentration camp. In order to reach the next road, a rocky forest path had to be taken. From here, it is a 40-minute walk to the nearest train station. A woman who had also attended the preview of Chiharu Shiota's exhibition had the same transportation problem to get to the train station because the shuttle didn't come - but this time we were in the right place. So we decided to 'autostopp' (German for hitchhike) and stopped the next car. The woman behind the wheel was from Ebensee. She knew every stop sign and yield sign. It was a racy drive! We reached the Ebensee train station faster than any shuttle could have ever taken us. Even though it was only a short car ride, we exchanged information about the exhibition we had just visited, the opening dates, where we, the passengers, were from and why we were attending the event, and she, born in Ebensee in the 1950s, talked about her childhood and the explorations of the tunnels by the Ebensee youth. This was long before most of the tunnel system was closed to visitors and a short section of the tunnel became a memorial.
At the station we parted ways. Each of us had a different goal from here - Fashion.at wanted to find out more about the events in Bad Ischl, the central city of this year's European Capital of Culture. Have you ever wondered if a town can be elegant without it just being due to the looks of the people? Bad Ischl can - this impression is supported by the architectural basis of the 19th century and the carefully placed new architecture. When Fashion.at arrived, a group of cyclists gathered around a flower bed in front of the train station and listened to a man. The man was Johannes Staudinger, the initiator of the Willy-Fred bicycle tours on the tracks of resistance fighters, often women. 'Willy-Fred' was the name of a group of partisans in the Salzkammergut during the Nazi regime. For the European Capital of Culture project, Johannes Staudinger brought together historians and searched the region's archives for information about the women, who have been almost forgotten over the decades. Only one of them, Resi Pesendorfer, was honored by the Republic of Austria for her efforts to protect the country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resi_Pesendorfer). It was an unplanned coincidence that Fashion.at arrived just in time for the introduction of the first official Willy-Fred tour. Staudinger explained that the five different tours will visit historically important places on the women's routes.
The cycling group started their tour and Fashion.at began to explore Bad Ischl until the presentation and discussion about the Willy-Fred bike tour project took place in a bookstore in Bad Ischl. Here in the bookstore, Fashion.at was able to meet Johannes Staudinger and talk to him to get more insight into the project. Staudinger is an enthusiastic cyclist and initiated the sport and culture association Velodrom in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. Velodrom is also the association behind the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut project 'Tours by Willy -Fred. Bicycle Partisans In The Salzkammergut', which was equipped by the media technology and design specialist with an app that provides information on who, when and where the routes were taken, as well as map navigation for the five tours. Each of the tours takes place only once as a guided event. Unfortunately, the remaining two tours are already fully booked. There are no plans to extend the tours at this time. For those interested in exploring the region, the app will take over the role of the guide. Details of the project are published on https://www.salzkammergut-2024.at/en/projekte/tours-by-willy-fred/.
Image: The picture shows Johannes Staudinger, initiator of the 'Tours by Willy-Fred' project, standing next to a historical bicycle (from the Sammlung Lettner) as it was used in the region in the 1930s/40s. The photo was taken on April 26, 2024 at the presentation and discussion of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut project in the Alte Kurdirektion Verlagsbuchhandlung in Bad Ischl, Upper Austria.
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