An American Jewish artist is returning to the city of her forefathers to launch a six-month project meant to remind Austrians that “memory is a part of national identity”.

Brandeis University academic Karen Frostig will launch “The Vienna Project” on October 23, three days before the holiday marking the establishment of post-war Austria.

Dedicated to all Austrians murdered during the Holocaust, including Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, political dissidents, the mentally ill and physically disabled people, the project will unfold as a series of public installations. These will include projections onto buildings and water, and installations at the sites of war crimes.

It will conclude with the projection of the names of more than 90,000 Austrian victims and dissidents onto the surface of Vienna’s wartime Flack Towers.

Ms Frostig said her project was viewed cautiously at first, but she now has broad support: “People… were a little apprehensive about the concept of an inclusive memorial… [And they] did not feel confident that I would pull off something at a distance of 4,000 miles without knowing German, in the middle of a financial crisis.”