Folk costume

This outfit, consisting of a blouse, skirt, apron and waistcoat is an example of Austrian folk dress. It is part of a collection of objects from Lya Riley (nee Kleinmann) which materialises aspects of her childhood in Austria, experiences during the Second World War (1939-1945), and life in New Zealand.

Lya was born in Vienna on 27 March 1921, the only child of Emil Kleinmann and Eugenie Rosenberg. Emil was a director at Anker Insurance, and the family enjoyed a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. They had a cook and a maid, and all of Lya’s clothes were made by a dressmaker.

As a child, Lya enjoyed family holidays in the mountains, and would wear this costume in celebration of her Austrian citizenship. Lya is still fond of the outfit, and as a child her daughter Lysette loved it too. However, as Lysette learnt more about her family history and had an opportunity to travel to Austria herself, the meaning of the garments changed. She now looks at photographs of her mother wearing this outfit and feels sad.

In the nineteenth century many restrictions which had previously dictated where Jews could live and work were removed, and in Western and Central European states Jews were accorded the rights and duties of citizenship. Lya probably felt that her Austrian citizenship guaranteed her certain freedoms and securities, but the emancipation of Jews exposed new forms of antisemitism and a new set of hateful stereotypes which some political parties used to attract votes. Antisemitism was integral to Nazism, and when the Nazi state in Germany introduced the Nuremberg laws in 1935 they legalised a racist hierarchy separating ‘Aryans’ and ‘non-Aryans.’

Intense Nazi propaganda had been circulating in Austria throughout the 1930s and when German forces marched into Austria on March 12, 1938, many citizens greeted them with enthusiastic support. Austria was incorporated into Germany the next day, and the Anschluss (union) was formalised through a plebiscite in April. Neither Jews nor Roma were allowed to vote.

Anti-Semitic actions and violence escalated quickly, and Jews were attacked, humiliated, and their businesses seized or looted. In addition, anti-Jewish legislation was quickly extended to Austria, and policies focussed on expropriation and emigration were implemented.

Lya and her mother Eugenie were among the 117,000 Jews who left Austria between 1938 and 1940, but Lya’s father Emil stayed in Vienna. He was deported to Minsk on 14 September 1942 and murdered four days later at Maly Trostinec. Emil lies with approximately 100,000 others in the regenerating forest; his name, date of birth and date of death printed on a yellow notice which has been attached to a tree. In 2019 Lysette travelled to Minsk and left a piece of pounamu in the shape of a heart at the base of Emil’s tree.

This outfit is, for Lya and her family, a reminder of their Austrian heritage. It represents happy family holidays in the years before the war, but is also a painful reminder that Lya and Eugenie were forced to leave the country of which they were so proud, and that citizenship did not protect Emil from the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

References:

• Neusner, J. 2001. Judaism: Emancipation. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, edited by Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes. Elsevier Ebook.
• Riley, Lysette and Helen Riley-Duddin, 2021. Conversations and emails with curators Katie Cooper and Stephanie Gibson.
• Riley, Lysette, 2021. Unpublished biography of Lya Kleinmann, born 27 March 1921 Vienna.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. n.d. Austria. Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/austria
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. n.d. Vienna. Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/vienna
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. n.d. Anschluss. Holocaust Bibliographies. https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/anschluss