The holdings of the Jewish Museum Hohenems represent 400 years of Jewish history. The focus of the collections lies in the history of the Jewish community, the surrounding regions in Tyrol, Switzerland, or Liechtenstein, and the Hohenems Diaspora, that has gained growing significance over the course of time.
The records of the communities history are fragmented. The archives of the community were lost in 1938, as were the interior of the synagogue and the ritual objects. Very few artifacts survived the Holocaust and the war, mostly in private collections and museums elsewhere. Some of the documents from the community archives are in Jerusalem today and could be reintegrated into our collections as reproductions.
Beyond that, we have to rely on other archives and some private collections, in order to reconstruct the history of the Hohenems community. Reproductions of important sources therefore fill some of the gaps in our own collections, helping us to form a basic stock of documentation.
The rapidly growing collection of documents related to the Hohenems Diaspora we owe to the descendants of the Hohenems families, who have provided us with many artifacts and personal documents, both originals and reproductions, since the opening of the museum in 1991.
These collections are divided in the following holdings. Some of them can be searched online in the databases on this website.
Documents
Jewish community or the Hohenems diaspora, that is, Jewish families of Hohenems and their descendants. The actual archive of the Jewish community is no longer extant. Some parts were destroyed … ►
Photographs
Thanks to the Jewish Museum’s close contact with Hohenems descendants, its photographic collection has rapidly grown in recent years and covers mainly three areas: 1. The history of Jewish families … ►
Artifacts
Today, memorabilia from Jewish families constitute the core of the Jewish Museum’s artifacts collection and not, regrettably, the major collection of ceremonial objects the Jewish Community Hohenems had … ►
Art
The Jewish Museum’s art collection includes, on the one hand, graphic art and paintings from the property of Hohenems Jews and their descendants, who wish their family memorabilia to be kept together at a … ►
Rare Books
In its collection of second-hand books, the Jewish Museum preserves rare works from the family property of former Hohenems community members as well as of their descendants. Among them, in particular, are … ►