Jewish Vienna

June 2014

 
 

There's a fair amount of guilt in Austria, with Holocaust memorials around Vienna. We took a couple of tours; the first, by a young, pregnant woman who had a good sense of irony and humor. When we looked at the Hofburg Palace from which Hitler announced Austria's annexation (Anschluss) to Germany, Sarah said that she understood that the Heldenplatz (the plaza in front of the palace) was filled with supporters, but she never heard of anyone who admitted to having been there. The old Austrians apparently can't admit to their complicity. The 50-something woman who took us on a Freud/Jewish tour, has been giving the tour for 30 years. She said that, in her early 20s, she'd had a friend who was Jewish and soon became interested in the Jewish Welcoming organization in Vienna. She was well versed in Jewish history and practices; I don't know if she'd converted or just studied. She said that she went through analysis with a Freudian, yet she's still very tightly strung (she was disturbed by a baby crying when we were in the Freud house and also by banging noises at another stop). A group of keys labeled with names of deported Jews is on a street corner. It was initiated by a woman in an apartment building, with others joining her, to memorialize the Jews who were taken from Servitengasse street’s buildings. We also went to the site of a very old cemetery (16th through 18th centuries), which is being restored, with Hasidic Jews verifying the headstones.