St. Wolfgang in September 2020

It is still standing there. The knee-high figure. In a shop in the middle of Sankt Wolfgang am Wolfgangsee. In the Salzkammergut. In Austria. It is 22 September 2020, lunchtime. Strictly speaking, the small statue is not in the shop, but in the entrance door. The heavy base of the figure holds it open. The door. The figure wears a red and white turban. Mouth and nose are covered by a blue and white corona mask. White shirt, dark green gilet, red trousers. Dark brown, strong arms hold a braided tray with a slate. “Welcome. Please keep your distance. Thank you very much” it says. I saw the small figure more than a week ago, the day after I arrived in Sankt Wolfgang. “That can’t be true”, I thought. “Don’t get upset”, I said to myself. My first holiday in more than a year. I should relax, I want to relax, not get upset. About racist signs. But every time I pass the shop hawking signs of all kinds on my walks, my stomach tightens with indignation.

“You want to hike up the “Vormauer” now, maybe even further, to the top of Schafberg. No time to argue”, I try to persuade myself. But it doesn’t work. I can’t spend another week’s holiday here without articulating what’s on my mind. I step over the threshold. A younger saleswoman asks for my wishes. “Good day,” I say. “I would like to know if no one has ever pointed out to you that this black servant is a racist statement?” The shop assistant laughs piquedly. “We won’t even get into that discussion!” “I see,” I say and leave the shop.

I’m still upset. The fact that I am obviously not the first person to have brought up discrimination against people with dark skin here does not reassure me. I have to get rid of the fact that I find it particularly bad to put the message “keep your distance” on a black figure’s platter. I turn around. Suddenly an older woman is standing in front of me, obviously the boss of the shop. She says in an offended soughing voice that she commissioned “the moor” 40 years ago “from an artist who has unfortunately already passed away”. And this moor has accompanied her ever since. This moor, she says quite clearly without inverted commas. And this moor has “grown dear to her heart”. He is part of the business, she cannot give him away. And I have to understand “the other side” too.

I shake my head. No, I can’t understand that. That this woman has learned nothing for 40 years.