Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Director Rita Bakacs
Countries Germany
Duration 10 min
Synopsis
Once residence of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy family, the ruinous estate in a small village in Eastern Germany serves today as workplace for so-called “one-euro-jobbers.“ They participate in a state-subsidized temporal employment program which guarantees them 1€ per hour for their work, in addition to receiving social welfare. “Let’s face it, I don’t know how to do anything. I was a drunkard for ten years“ – states one of them, while walking a goat on a leash as his daily duty. Fractions of the workers’ stories interweave with their recounts of the palace’s turbulent history: GDR children’s home, base of the Red Army, and home of the Mendelssohn family, whose name does not seem to mean anything to anyone here anymore. What remains is the palace with its crumbling facade.
Once residence of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy family, the ruinous estate in a small village in Eastern Germany serves today as workplace for so-called “one-euro-jobbers.“ They participate in a state-subsidized temporal employment program which guarantees them 1€ per hour for their work, in addition to receiving social welfare. “Let’s face it, I don’t know how to do anything. I was a drunkard for ten years“ – states one of them, while walking a goat on a leash as his daily duty. Fractions of the workers’ stories interweave with their recounts of the palace’s turbulent history: GDR children’s home, base of the Red Army, and home of the Mendelssohn family, whose name does not seem to mean anything to anyone here anymore. What remains is the palace with its crumbling facade.