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Es Geht Wohl Anders (Things Turn Out Differently): The Unexpected Life of Walter Arlen

Dichter Herbst (2 of 2)

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5. Tante Henshi c. 1920s The Dichter family at their home in Burgenland in the 1920s. Seated in the center is Leopold Dichter and to his right, his sister Hannah (Henshi), who moved to Chicago in the late 19th century. Tante Henshi, as Walter knew her, provided crucial assistance, including visas, to Walter and other family members that allowed them to escape Austria when the Nazis came to power. Image from the Dichter Collection, courtesy of Schüetz Design.
8. In Burgenland, 1929 Walter's family at their home in Burgenland in November, 1929. Standing left to right are Dr. Blick, Berthold Silberstein, Toddy Kolb, Michael Aptowitzer (Walter's father), and Rosl Dichter. Seated left to right are Mrs. Blick, Esther Dichter, Edith Aptowitzer, Shirley Wahl, Rose Wahl, Gretl Dichter, Isidor Dichter, and cousin Joyce Wahl. Walter sits on the ground in the front. Image from the Dichter Collection, courtesy of Schüetz Design.
18. Outside the Dichter Department Store, 1928
19. At the Beverly Hills Hotel, 1957
25. At the home of Minna Coe, 1957 Walter (top left) and guests at a dinner party hosted by Minna Coe (seated, center) in honor of Heitor Villa Lobos (seated, center) during the filming of "Green Mansions" in 1957. Standing next to Walter are choral conductor Roger Wagner, Viennese conductor Ernst Kanitz, and John Vincent, chair of the UCLA Music Department. Seated on left is renowned film composer Milkos Rosza. Image from the Dichter Collection, courtesy of Schüetz Design.
29. Hiking in Sauerbrunn, 1935
32. Hannah and Wolf Aptowitzer
35. With Copland and Mills, 1965
36. With Austrian Thomas Klestil, c. 1970s Walter (far left) stands next to Austrian Consul General Thomas Klestil and members of a German theater group during their visit to Los Angeles in the early 1970s. Klestil, who opened Austria's consulate in Los Angeles in 1969, went on to serve as Austria's ambassador to the UN and was elected President of Austria in the 1990s. Also pictured are the German Consul General Constantin von Dziembowski (far right) and German cultural attaché Ingeborg Kurtz (center). Image from the Arlen (Dichter) Collection, courtesy of Schuetz Design.
37. With Eugene Ormandy c. 1970s Walter with famed conductor Eugene Ormandy and his wife Margaret at their home in Palm Springs. Ormandy was born to Jewish parents in Hungary and came to the United States in 1921. He began his tenure as the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1936 and served for in the post for over 44 years. Ormandy would often consult with Walter about his work during visits to his family's vacation home in Palm Springs, as pictured here c. 1970s. Image from the Arlen (Dichter) Collection, courtesy of Schuetz Design.

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Sammlung Dichter (The Dichter Collection) In May 2005, the space that once housed the Dichter Department store became a space for contemporary art. After being seized by the Nazi government in the 1938, and Aryanized by banker Edmund Topolansky, the store reopened in 1954 under the auspices of the Osai Company, who ran the business successfully until January 2005. When the company shuttered its doors, a group of local artists negotiated with the new owner to use the building as a gallery and performance space while he worked on his plans to build a new development on the site. They invited local and international artists to present their work there, encouraging them to be mindful of the building’s history and integrate the department-store environment into their works. They displayed pieces in the shop windows, performed music in the display spaces once occupied by mannequins, and completely reinvented the space.

When the artists learned of the story of the Dichter family, their long history in Vienna and their forced emigration, however, they decided to redirect their efforts and focus on excavating the building’s early history. In 2007, Eva Brunner-Szabo connected them with Walter (Aptowitzer) Arlen and his sister Edith, as well as their cousin Ernest Dichter, who sent them dozens of family photos and archival documents, which they organized into the “Sammlung Dichter (Dichter Collection).”

In 2006, the former department store was demolished. But the community of artists that had formed, under the direction of Eva Brunner-Szabo, Roland & Richard Schüetz, and Dr. Rainer Gries, created an exhibition along the Grundsteingasse they called, “Dichter Herbst (Dichter Autumn) – 100 Years of Ernest Dichter – the Dichter Family Warenhaus Dichter (Dichter Department Store),” a multi-layered exhibition that would function as a kind of memorial to honor the Dichter family and their contributions to Vienna’s history. The exhibit brought the family’s history to life using digital projections, old advertisements and neon signs, and excerpts from the Dichter Collection, and was accompanied by a series of lectures, readings, and film screenings, as well as a performance of Walter’s music, which both he and his sister Edith attended. Then, with support from both the national government and the Ottakring Kulturfreunde, they used the same body of materials to create a public exhibition in the piazza located next to the store they called “Säulen der Erinnerung (Pillars of Memory).” The pillars, which featured historical photos alongside Dichter family history, stood for eight months, and soon, "Pillars of Memory" expanded to become an on-going art project in remembrance of all of the victims of National Socialism. Eva Brunner-Szabo, one of the exhibition’s creators, described:
“The temporary art project “Säulen der Erinnerung (Pillars of Memory)“ is not mainly about admonition, commemoration or provocation, but the starting point of a process which makes public space a vehicle of discourse with the past.”
Roland & Richard Schüetz have generously given us access to the Dichter Collection, from which we have drawn many of the photographs featured in this exhibit, including those in the Photo Library that follows. You can learn more about their work and the Sammlung Dichter on the collection's website.