40 Objects 40 Years display, Freud Museum

In his essay Civilisation & its Discont­ents 1929, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) had analysed the aggressive cruelty that changed men into sa­vages. Aft­er Hit­ler took power in Germany in 1933, as much as he recog­nised these trends, Freud was reluctant to apply them to Vienna. Even when the Nazis burnt all the books in 1933 by hated authors, including Freud! Yet he supported his sons Oliver (1891–1969) & Ernst (1892–1970), to leave Ber­lin and to move to London in 1933.

I invite you to reread Freud's escape: Nazi Vienna->London 1938. Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Doll­fuss DID ban the Nazi Party in June 1933, but he was assassinated by local Nazis a year later. Even then desperately hoped that Doll­fuss’ succ­ess­or would continue policies of ind­ep­end­ence and basic decency. Why? Freud’s revol­u­t­ionary visions into the uncharted sub­conscious mind SHOULD have prepared him for the dark forces moving ahead.

Anna and dad Sigmund Freud, Vienna, 1920

Freud Museum, London

Sigmund didn't believe that Aus­tria would come under German rule! Yet in 1938 German soldiers were massing on Austria's border, annexing Austria into the 3rd Reich. Many Jews urgently fled to safety, but Freud was 81 and very ill with cancer; and U.K migration quotas remained inflex­ible.

Why had Freud not left Vienna quickly? Because he’d spent his apol­it­­ical life­ claiming that Nazi sturm and drang was mere noise, the outward man­i­festation of messy inner liv­es. Note Hitler appeared on the balcony of Vienna’s imper­ial Hof­­burg Palace to declare the Anschluss in March 1938 i.e absorption of Austria into the 3rd Reich. Vienna was fill­ed with excited Nazi sup­p­orters, thugs looted Jewish shops, damaged synagog­ues and attacked Jews. And ruined Freud’s International Psychoanalytic pub­lish­ing house.

While Freud believed in­sight would return to his be­loved cult­ur­ed Vienna, everyone in Freud’s circle tried to get him to leave. Note these fol­low­ers risked their OWN political capital, personal income and physic­al safety to save him. Anna Freud (1894-1982) had ministered to all her father’s needs while man­aging her own pioneering child psycho-analyst pract­ice. She dealt with the new Nazi overlords who were extort­ing money from notable Jews seeking to emig­rate. But she would never have left her dad. Physician-neurologist Ernest Jones (1879-1958) tire­lessly pro­moted Freud’s ideas in Europe. When he heard the threat to Freud, Jones flew to Vien­na to bend British immigration rules. US’s ambassador to France William Bullitt Jr (1891-1967) had been Freud’s patient in the 1920s. Their friendship devel­oped later, through collaborating on a Pres Wood­row Wilson biography; the U.S even demanded Freud’s safe release. Dr Max Schur was treating Freud’s jaw can­c­er. Schur’s loyalty was clear when he delayed his own family’s exit! 

Marie Bonaparte (1882-1962), grandniece of Napoleon & wife of Prince George of Greece-Denmark, had been Freud’s pat­ient be­fore she too became a psychoanalyst. She rushed to Vienna, paying the Nazis for Freud’s huge flight tax.

The refugees boarded the Orient Express in June 1938, 3 months after Hitler annexed Austria, and they noted that tension inten­sified as the train rolled through Ger­many via Munich and Dachau. At 3AM the train reached the border where the Ger­man bor­der guards glan­ced at his docum­ents, then into France with Bonaparte, then continuing to London.

Freud's four sisters in Vienna 1941

Holocaust Historical Society

Of Freud’s children, Anna and Martin had been taken by the Gestapo, but lived. Freud’s 4 sisters Rosa, Marie, Pauline & Adolfine stayed and were exterm­inated.

Freud's home in Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead

Later the Freud Museum

Note the Blue Heritage Plaques

The remaining Freuds moving to London, in Maresfield Gardens Hampstead in July. They brought their belongings, AND an amazing intellectual world. Freud spent the last year of his life with the objects that shaped his views about mental health. His London study has been preserved just as he left it, including thousands of books. And he avidly collected 2,500 Egyptian, Greek & Roman figures, & Asian artefacts that showed his interest in ancient life.

In London Freud was too ill to work and died with a year. Anna, a pioneering child psychologist, continued to live there until her death in 1982. According to her wishes, it opened as a permanent Museum in July 1986, with the entire contents of her father’s study and library left intact. So let’s visit Freud’s home-museum in London this year.

Freud's psychoanalytic couch surrounded by his books and art objects

Freud Museum

 

Freud’s couch from Vienna came in 1938 because it had been the centre of his psycho-analysis practice, blurring the line between work and home. Thus the couch had been essential in recreating end-of-century atmosphere Vienna, remaining in Freud’s study in the London Museum today. And explore the amazing books and collectibles next to the couch.

The exhibition, Protected: 40 Objects 40 Years, displays the life & work of the great Freud family marking the Museum’s 40th anniversary. Novelist Esther Freud and others from the world of culture & psychoanalysis have chosen objects from Museum archives to celebrate the event. These objects tell the story of the Museum, the history of psychoanalysis and of exiled family life. Esther Freud chose a young letter from her dad-artist Lucian Freud (Sigmund’s grandson), who wrote to his parents (Ernst Freud & Lucie Brasch) whilst he was away at English boarding school. Some of the artefacts were hidden from sight in the museum’s attic and are being shown for the first time in a collection curated by Briony Davis. One of the pieces on display is a metal porcupine, a momento of Freud’s trip to the USA in 1909, picked as a reflection on confusions of intimacy. See animal figures in relief, chosen by Neuberger, who was fascinated to find such an item in Freud’s personal collection.

One wall of Freud's library

Freud Museum, London

 

See a C13th copper Chanukah lamp, featuring a Hebrew inscription about light from Proverbs. The psychoanalyst was famously ambivalent about his Jewish heritage so this lamp was probably never lit by him; rather it was and appreciated as a cultural and historical artefact, not religious.

 

Chanukah lamp with 3 animal medals and Hebrew letters in relief

13th century, Northern France or Germany

The Freud Museum London

Following Freud’s own vision, the Museum Director’s aim was to create chances for everyone to learn about and from psychoanalysis. They urged the cultural commentators to be wide-ranging in their choices, about the past of course and also about the contemporary relevance of their chosen object. Other objects on display include a battered leather suitcase belonging to the Freuds’ live-in maid Paula Fichtel and the hand-written recipe book belonging to Freud’s wife Martha for Viennese apple strudel etc. And see Anna’s sewing machine and her patterns for cardigans, plus her embroidery and lacework. She saw weaving and embroidery invaluable crafts, alongside the serious work of psychoanalysis.

The exhibition is presenting lectures and tours in the anniversary year, and they are also building the Freuds’ beloved garden into a mental health refuge.