Historians are looking for witnesses who lived in the Löw-Beer villa

Brno - Brno historians are looking for witnesses who lived in the Löw-Beer villa at the time it served as a youth hostel. This function was held by the former villa of Brno manufacturers for a long 58 years, from 1954 to 2012. The Museum of Brno, which takes care of the villa, informed about the call in a press release.

"We created a working list of questions for witnesses - about the functioning of the boarding school, the daily routine, and spending free time. The first respondents were visitors to the villa exhibition, who mentioned during the tour that they lived here in their student years. From them, we then received further contacts to their former housemates," said the head of research, Jana Černá.

The villa was built in 1904 by Moriz Fuhrmann and later inhabited by the family of wealthy Jewish entrepreneur Alfred Löw-Beer. After World War II, the villa was nationalized and in 1954 it was established as a Youth Hostel as a branch of the Masaryk Student Home on Cihlářská Street in Brno. The Museum of Brno is dedicated to this post-war history.

"During the research, we are expanding the museum's collection with various personal materials from the witnesses of the Youth Hostel. These include drawings and photographs capturing the environment and residents of the boarding school, outing books, meal vouchers, or behavior assessments of the students that the educators regularly sent to the parents," said Černá.

The results of the research will be presented after its completion in an exhibition at the Celnice gallery located in the villa's garden. Witnesses who stayed at the Youth Hostel in the Löw-Beer villa and wish to share their memories can contact curator and historian Jana Černá directly at the address [email protected].