WHAT A FAMILY!

Die außergewöhnliche Geschichte der Familie Zuntz führt von der Frankfurter Judengasse nach Großbritannien, Israel, in die USA und zurück nach Deutschland. Sie wurde von berühmten Persönlichkeiten wie Leopold Zunz, Mitbegründer der Wissenschaft des Judentums, geschrieben und umfasst besondere Unternehmungen wie etwa die Gründung des Kaffee- und Röstunternehmens A. Zuntz sel. Wwe durch Rachel Zunz-Hess.

The extraordinary history of the Zuntz family leads from Frankfurt’s Judengasse to Great Britain, Israel, the USA, and back again to Germany. It was written by famous figures such as Leopold Zuntz, widely considered to be a co-founder of Jewish Studies, and includes business ventures such as the coffee bean roasting company A. Zuntz sel. Wwe, founded by Rachel Zuntz-Hess, Amschel’s widow.

Born and raised in Israel, photographer Ruthe Zuntz now lives with her family in Berlin. Throughout her years of research, she searched for her family’s traces and testimonies in Frankfurt and around the world. The starting point for her performative exploration of her ancestors’ history were the letters her father wrote to her after she moved to Germany. Ruthe’s father, Simon Zuntz, survived the Holocaust because his parents had sent him and his younger brother Leo on a Kindertransport from Frankfurt to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1939. Simon’s father, Karl Zuntz, his second wife Ella, and his siblings Esther, Miriam, and Harry were murdered in Auschwitz. Simon’s older sister Esther was murdered in Sobibor.

In her exhibition, which was specially developed for the Jewish Museum, the artist and photographer Ruthe Zuntz explores both family histories and transgenerational trauma and provides unique insight into the processing of memory and grief in the second and third post-Shoah generations.

The multimedia exhibition merges the father’s childhood memories with his daughter’s photographic explorations and artifacts from the family’s collection. Ruthe Zuntz’s personal journey is complemented by the results of her historical research and documents from the family’s 500-year history. In “What a Family,” the immersive, multidimensional show combines artistic research with personal exploration and historical testimony.

Zuntz is the name of an extended, long-established Frankfurt Jewish family. It stems from Zons, a present-day district in Dormagen that Pesach Zons left in the fifteenth century to escape the anti-Semitic riots there. He fled to Frankfurt’s Judengasse, where he lived until his death in 1488. Throughout the centuries, family members migrated to other locations, but their center always remained Frankfurt’s Judengasse.

Ruthe Zuntz (born 1971 in Haifa, Israel) moved to Berlin in 1991 and studied media design and other subjects at Berlin University of the Arts. In 1996, a semester abroad took her to New York City, where she discovered the medium of photography. In 1999, she founded Walkscreen, a platform for interactive installations that she used to present her photographic explorations of the city in the years that followed.

Ruthe Zuntz was invited by the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF) to develop international artistic collaborations and to design interactive installations such as Point to Point—Tokyo (2005), I’m Pulse Beijing (2006), and Borderless Me Helsinki (2006). In 2007, Zuntz launched the art and peace project Challenging Walls—Life Beyond the Walls. Her most recent publication is BERLIN (2020), commissioned by Nicolas Berggruen Holdings GmbH.

For years, Ruthe Zuntz has also been developing workshops for aspiring photographers, particularly young people; focused on certain themes and locations, these have taken place at venues such as the Marina Bay Sands ArtScience Museum (Singapore), the Anne Frank Center (Berlin), and Shenkar College (Tel Aviv).

The exhibition “What a Family! Ruthe Zuntz—500 Years in Focus” is presented in the context of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Israel. It was made possible by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the Ernst Max von Grunelius Foundation, the Berthold Leibinger Foundation, the Schleicher Foundation, and the Egon Gerson Foundation.