Women - traditional costumes - life stories
Vibrant colors on a golden background next to jet-black bridal attire: Danube Swabian traditional costumes provide surprising insights into the former lives of women and girls. This world was narrow, governed by village and church rules, but also expansive, offering the diversity of a multicultural society.
Image gallery
Stoffreste vom Umnähen von Röcken
Detail der Sonntagskleidung einer Bauerntochter, getragen in Kéty / Giek (Schwäbische Türkei, Ungarn) 1942
Mädchen-Festkleidung aus Kéty / Giek (Ungarn), um 1943
Festtagskleidung einer Bauerntochter, getragen in Kljajićevo / Kernei / Kerény (Jugoslawien, heute Serbien) um 1933
14-jähriges Mädchen in Zăbrani / Guttenbrunn / Temeshidegkút (Rumänien), 1933
Kirchweih-Umzug junger Paare in Neudorf (Banat, Rumänien), 1976
The exhibition builds bridges between tradition and modernity, ideology and reality, past and present textile upcycling. It provides insights into the lives of Danube Swabians who, as descendants of German-speaking emigrants, settled in the Kingdom of Hungary from the late 17th to the 19th century. There, they lived as one ethnic group among many.
20 clothing ensembles, numerous photographs, drawings by Erna Piffl, and other objects make it clear: personal memories are woven into textiles, life stories inextricably linked to them. They invite visitors to immerse themselves in European histories of arrival, existence, demarcation and integration, rootlessness and uprooting.
A special exhibition of the Danube Swabian Central Museum, Ulm, in the Museum of European Cultures of the Berlin State Museums.
