PALOMA VARGA WEISZ: Projekt Synagoge Stommeln 2026

For the Stommeler Synagogue, Paloma Varga Weisz reconstructed her father’s studio: a tiny room on the second floor of his wife’s Gründerzeit-era house in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, high up and removed from everyday life. Here, Feri Varga lived in his own world, surrounded by memories—here he painted and created his works, right next door to his daughter’s bedroom. He told Paloma in great detail about his life in Hungary and later in Paris, from where he fled to Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1940. While still in Paris, he had already renounced his Jewish heritage and from then on called himself simply Varga. In 1961, he followed his wife Leonore from Cagnes-sur-Mer to Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Moving to this provincial German town marked a profound rupture for him—and, as a native-born Jew, a return to a country with which he had a traumatic connection. This silence has become an invisible legacy. It has had a lasting impact on the life and work of Paloma Varga Weisz.

Paloma Varga Weisz, Beulenmann, 2003, Droege Art Collection

In the former prayer hall of the Stommel synagogue—a place that symbolizes Jewish life, displacement, and survival in equal measure—this exploration crystallizes into a spatial memory. Feri Varga is present, silent and aloof. The visitor stops at the threshold. He cannot enter the room, just as history can only be imagined, but never experienced again. It is precisely in this distance that the work unfolds its true power: the past remains out of reach and yet exerts its influence on the present.

THE EXHIBITION RUNS FROM SEPTEMBER 8 TO DECEMBER 6, 2026.

Stommeln Synagogue
Martinus-Haus
Venloer Str. 546
Pulheim-Stommeln

More information: Stommeln Synagogue