“I am writing you from St. Jakob, a little village in Carinthia, Austria. My name is Marjan and I am working for the Slovene cultural association Rož in the south of Austria – 4 km to Slovenian border and 25 km to Italian border. 80 years ago, in the year 1938 Adolf Hitler annected Austria to Germany. Austria did not resist and most of the people cheered and rejoiced because of that annexion.

A few months after the German occupation some “scientists” measured the whole population of St. Jakob ( about 3200 people, almost 80% of the population), just to prove that the “Aryan race” is present in our region, too. After they measured each person`s ears, nose, the colour of the eyes and hair, they marked them with a plus = Aryan= German and a minus = Nonaryan = Slovene.

We did not know about this “race inquiry”, because our parents never talked about it – probably because much worse things happened in our village and all over Europe – the killing of impaired people (euthanasy), deportation of Slovenian families and of course millions of dead in the German Reich.

In memory of this race inquiry and mainly as a warning for the young people not to believe such pseudoscientific tendencies, who by “science” try to prove that there are good and bad people (of course by their criteria) and that can be seen from outside – we are preparing an exhibition about this event in our village. It will be mostly an exhibition against racism.
We are very impressed about your work and of course it would perfectly fit in the concept of our exhibition.
That is why we would like to show your work in our place, too.
We would show this work outside, so people can see it who don`t want to step inside and see the whole exhibition. Your work could be a real provocation and inspiration and this is what we aim to achieve.
Many good wishes and regards from the southern part of Austria.”
All my love for you. Thanks

(Transcript of the first e-mail sent by the team of the Vermessungsamt)