A Letter to the Stars
In the school-year 2002/03 all Austrian students were invited to take part in a project called "A Letter To The Stars". The aim was to do research-work about the lives of the 80000 Austrians, who were killed by the Nazis. In Laa an der Thaya 44 students of the local music school took part in the project. After Christmas vacation they tried to recover details about Eugenie Rosenbaum and Ida Fischer - two Jewish women who were born in Laa.
The students tried to find out information in many ways. At first they made a request at the town government. Then they wrote letters to various archives in Lower Austria and Vienna. This lead to quite some success. In the end, the findings were published in the internet. (www.LetterToTheStars.at)
The students also wrote about their feelings during the course of the project when writing imaginary letters to Eugenie Rosenbaum and Ida Fischer. These letters were bound to white baloons (the color white symbolizing rememberance in Jewish beliefs) and this way - togehter with thousands of other letters - sent to heaven on May 5th 2003, when the big final event took place at the Heldenplatz in the center of Vienna.
It was only coincidence that many of these letters were blown northwards and were later found in the area of Laa an der Thaya. The letters were sent back to the organizing platform and in the future will be part of an exhibition. Some of the letters and findings were already published in the book "Briefe in den Himmel. Schüler schreiben Geschichte" ("Letters to the Sky. Students write History" Wien 2003) Among them is the life-story of Ida Fischer from Laa. You can read all about it online.