Mariazeller Heimathaus

In numerous show rooms of the Heimathaus, exhibits on pilgrimage, customs, winter sports, iron processing, rural life, Mariazell railroad, handicrafts, everyday life of women, alpine pasture and lumberjack life and hunting are displayed. Woodcutter's and alpine huts are built under the roof.

Today's "Heimat.Haus Mariazell" was built in the early 17th century as "Unteres Spital - Bürgerspital". As a social institution, as a hospital, poorhouse and infirmary, it was created by the church and the community to care for the poorest who could no longer help themselves. Across the street was the "Obere Bürgerspital" (Upper Citizens' Hospital), where above all sick pilgrims were cared for by a nurse until they could start their often very long journey home.

A small farm provided the bare necessities of food for the inmates, with a large portion of the food being faverl soup, cabbage and potatoes. Meat was only served on high feast days.

However, processions were also assembled in this house, in order to march from here - under the solemn ringing of bells - singing and praying with flags and stretcher-madonnas over the Wiener Straße to the Mother of Mercy of Mariazell in the Basilica. The folkloristic exhibition in the old main school of Mariazell in the jubilee year 1957, which included exhibits from the Folklore Museum in Graz and the Technical Museum in Vienna, as well as individual objects from the holdings of the "Mariazell District Museum" dating back to the 1930s, brought back memories of this museum.

When, after the construction of a more modern old people's home, the poorhouse was abandoned, this house - structurally unchanged over the years - offered itself in 1967 as a suitable setting for a museum of local history. Now the "Heimat.Haus Mariazell" could become reality. The working group, which had been formed in the meantime and which consisted of Mrs. Imma Waid, Mr. Walter Arzberger, Mr. Josef Potzgruber, master builder, and Mr. Theodor Fluch, now eagerly started the expansion. As the "Heimathaus", it now documents the diverse history of Mariazell in numerous display rooms, which extend over five floors. Divided into different subject areas, visitors are shown the history of the pilgrimage to the "Mariazell Mother of Grace", old customs and dying crafts, alpine pasture and timber farming, exhibits of the former "imperial and royal iron foundry near Mariazell". Eisengusswerk bei Mariazell", as well as historical photographic equipment and picture documentation of the Mariazell photographer family Kuss of the last 150 years.

Also worth seeing are the exhibits on the construction and electrification of the Mariazell Railway. Now the next generation is already trying to preserve and expand the existing collection of our local history, which was painstakingly compiled and lovingly presented in the museum of the "Mariazeller Heimat.Haus", and especially to bring it closer to the younger visitors.