Unterammergau Whetstone and Village Museum: Even more shine for the piece of jewellery
Created: 06/02/2022, 12:00 p.m
The newly furnished grocery store inspires former mayor Michael Gansler, who is trying out the cash register from the 1920s.
© Antonia Reindl
The Unterammergau whetstone and village museum is finally open again.
There is now something special to discover there: a special exhibition and the new old general store.
Unterammergau – The steps are creaking.
Low ceilings, lots of wood and a lot more history.
At this place in Unterammergau, the past, which some only know in sepia and black and white, is immersed in the colors of the present.
For two years it was quiet in the village and whetstone museum due to corona.
Now it opens its doors again.
There is also reason to celebrate the 20 years that the museum is looking back on this year.
Michael Spindler, Chairman of the Unterammergau Historical Working Group, provides information about whetstones.
© Antonia Reindl
Key in, door open, the museum team doesn't make it that easy when they return.
In the venerable house on the village street, visitors can discover a lot of new old things.
Among other things in a special exhibition, which Michael Spindler, Chairman of the Historical Working Group, refers to in his opening speech.
Larvae from Tyrol and Werdenfels, some of which are more than 140 years old, can be seen in several showcases.
In addition, the second floor was expanded, "everything in-house".
Objects from the areas of winter sports, handicrafts and agriculture can now be seen there – planes, cobbler's tools, ski poles, wooden sledges and much more.
Historic championship sled: The brakeman just didn't brake
Sebastian Gindhart is standing next to one of the sleds.
He taps on it, "that was mine".
On the copy next to it, he won the Bavarian doubles championship in 1965.
He was the brakeman, "and I didn't brake," he says with a smile.
A few yards away, he grabs an agricultural object that looks like a miniature yoke.
This was once used to help bull horns grow evenly.
Things like that excite him.
Sometimes he stays in the fund for two hours and rummages, "that's exciting for me".
Sebastian Gindhart won the Bavarian Championships in 1965 as a brakeman on this sled.
© Antonia Reindl
For Gindhart, the village museum is like a "baby", says assessor Paul Mitterer.
A passion that also drives Spindler.
On the day of the reopening, when there is food and drink to music in front of the house, the chairman of the association will guide you through the museum.
Among other things, visitors learn from him that the whetstone was once as important as the mobile phone is today.
The first evidence of whetstone production in Unterammergau dates back to 1404. It ended in the 1950s.
New in the village museum: general store with lots of memories
Also new in the village museum is a general store that operated in Unterammergau until the 1980s.
Entering this takes you back a few decades, when snuff, suspenders and mousetraps were sold out of the drawers and the till opened the cash drawer with a loud bang.
The store was on the way to school.
Many children were drawn there, remembers former mayor Michael Gansler as he stands behind the counter.
The girls and boys were particularly enthusiastic about the candy jars.
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The Unterammergau village museum
The museum at Dorfstraße 7 in Unterammergau is open
on Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 5 p.m. to 7
p.m.
On Whit Monday, June 6th, the historical working group is planning another mill day at Schneiderla's grinding mill with food, drinks and demonstrations.
The village and whetstone museum was opened in 2002 under Gansler.
But the history of the building goes back much further, as Martin Heigl knows.
After the great village fire in 1777, the house was built in its current form.
In 1886 the forestry office bought it for 9000 marks.
Foresters lived in it for around 80 years.
The building is almost in its original condition, "because the forestry department didn't put much into it," says Heigl.
Later, carving students lived in it, in the 1990s it stood empty until it became a museum.
Gansler calls the grown museum “a little gem” and hopes that many more exhibitions will fill it.
The house could also be expanded.
Gansler opens a door.
Behind it is another room.
A good part of the venerable house could still be expanded.
