verlassen

 

In July 1914, a generous gentleman founded the Elisabethenheim Foundation and donated a simply furnished but spacious building with thirteen rooms and some land to the Children‘s Welfare Office of the City of Zurich. Before that, he made improvements in and around the house at his own expense. The home was used to care for 25 children in need of help from all over the canton of Zurich. In 1972 it was decided to close the children‘s home and sell the property. The management of the children‘s home proved to be impossible in the last few years, mainly because staff could no longer be found due to the remoteness of the home.

​

Then it became quiet around the property. In 1994, an elderly millionaire is said to have given the property to a lady, known to me only as M.W.. The two livedthere together for a year until the master of the house was hospitalised with life-threatening wounds and malnutrition and died. After that M.W. ran a dog breeding business in the house. 66 dogs were taken away from her, most of them neglected, poorly fed or sick. Since 2006, M.W. has been gone and untraceable. From then on People, animals and nature go in and out of the house. Now a former children‘s home and proud residence is on the verge of decay - which above all once served such magnanimous purposes.

 

personal project

documentary photography, archive

May 2022