ORF Focus: Commemorating the November Pogroms of 1938 and “Jewish Vienna”

Kurier, November 14, 2025

German original: https://kurier.at/kultur/medien/orf-schwerpunkt-gedenken-an-novemberpogrome-1938-und-das-juedische-wien/403099565

ORFIII presents a new two-part series with former “ZIB” presenter and former museum director Danielle Spera. Numerous documentary premieres also on ORF2. An overview.

By Christoph Silber

Nov. 4, 2025, 5:30 a.m.

In commemoration of the pogroms on the night of November 9-10, 1938, ORF is showing a major multimedia program focus this week. ORF 2, ORF III, Ö1, and ORF ON are dedicating themselves to the victims of Nazi terror and the causes and consequences of anti-Semitism—up to the present day—in partly newly produced documentaries and feature films.

Starting on Tuesday, special attention will also be paid to the Jewish history of the federal capital. “Vienna has always been a Jewish city. Much of this is still very much alive today, but much has been lost forever,” says Danielle Spera in the two-part series Das jüdische Wien (Jewish Vienna). The former “ZIB” presenter and former director of the Jewish Museum talks about the multifaceted life of the Jewish community. The production, designed by Susanne Pleisnitzer, opens doors that would otherwise remain closed to many and calmly dispels anti-Semitic clichés. The two-part series will premiere on November 4, 2025 (part 1) and November 11, 2025 (part 2) at 8:15 p.m. on ORF III.

During the presentation of Das jüdische Wien (Jewish Vienna) on Tuesday evening at the Palais Epstein, Spera explained: “The two documentaries are intended to provide an insight into the past and present of Jewish life in Austria and, above all, the diversity of today's Jewish community.” Judaism in Austria has a long and important history with many tragic breaks, but also with many wonderful times. “Above all, we must remember what Jews have done for our country. But hardly anyone talks about that today; instead, we constantly talk about the Nazi era, about the war in the Middle East—even though we have a war on our doorstep that hardly anyone talks about.” Judaism is “a very joyful tradition, a more joyful religion that focuses on life rather than death,” Spera emphasizes.

Showing Connections

“Around the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we want to highlight historical connections and keep the dialogue about our shared past, present, and future alive,” says ORF III program director Peter Schöber. “Especially at a time when anti-Semitic attitudes are noticeably on the rise again, it is our responsibility as a public broadcaster to take a stand against exclusion, hatred, and anti-Semitism in particular, and to promote respect and cohesion.” This production, to which Spera contributed her expertise, is therefore “far more than a historical documentary; it is a contribution to raising awareness and a clear commitment to historical responsibility.”

Part 1 (November 4): Focuses on Jewish wedding and family life, religious practice (especially in Leopoldstadt), economics and patronage (Zedakah), and the great daughters and sons of Vienna (including Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, and Hedy Lamarr).

Part 2 (November 11): Covers Jewish holidays, Jewish dietary laws (kashrut), the role of women (salonnières), the diaspora, and Jewish memorial culture in Vienna (stones of remembrance).

Other ORF III premieres in this extensive focus include a visit by Karl Hohenlohe to the Jewish Museum Vienna in the series Aus dem Rahmen (22:40) and an episode of Geschichte Heute – Österreichs vertriebene Genies (Saturday, 19:50). In it, experts talk about the targeted attack of National Socialism on universities, the biographies of the victims, and what the expulsion of knowledge later meant for the country.

Also on Tuesday, Viennese filmmaker Peter Mahler will be working on his complex family history in a first broadcast on ORF 2 (11:05 p.m., ORF2). Here, “the contradictions of many families after the Second World War, which were hidden behind a wall of silence, were revealed. It is precisely this wall that I want to break through with the film,” says Mahler.

Documentary Premieres on ORF2

“kreuz & quer: Eine Familie – Zwei Welten” (Cross and Cross: One Family – Two Worlds)

Broadcast date and time: Tuesday, November 4, 2025, 11:05 p.m., ORF 2 and ORF ON

Content: Filmmaker Peter Mahler searches for traces in his family history that unite two extreme poles: a Jewish grandfather (Peter) who had to flee to the USA as a child, and another grandfather (Joachim) who was an active Nazi persecutor of Jews as an SS officer.

Theme: The film confronts relatives in Austria and Germany with the question of how the SS officer could have been a likeable grandfather, and sheds light on the wall of silence after the Second World War. Emotional moments include excerpts from letters written by the great-grandmother about fear and terror during her flight.

“The Passport Forger – Resistance in the Underground”

Broadcast date and time: Friday, November 7, 10:35 p.m., ORF 2

Content: Tells the story of the young German Jew Cioma Schönhaus, who lived in the Berlin underground in 1943 and forged identity papers for persecuted Jews. The film uses original audio recordings of Schönhaus.

Topic: Jewish resistance and survival in the Nazi underground.

“The Guardian of Memory – Daliah Hindler”

Broadcast date and time: Sunday, November 9, 12:30 p.m., ORF 2

Content: Daliah Hindler in her memorial and remembrance work in Vienna, in particular the laying of the “Stones of Remembrance” (memorial stones for the victims of the Holocaust).

Topic: Never forgetting the victims of Nazi persecution and those whom Vienna lost to the Holocaust.

Further Productions

Anti-Semitism has spread like a plague throughout the centuries, as Robert Gokl's productions on ORF2 show: In People & Powers: Old Hatred, New Delusion – Anti-Semitism – History of a Deadly Prejudice (Friday, 11:20 p.m.) and in the documentary Old Hatred, New Delusion – Anti-Semitism after 1945 (Sunday, 23:05) the causes and consequences of violent anti-Semitism and documents how anti-Semitic prejudices and hatred of Jews continued to have an impact after 1945. The topic of anti-Semitism has taken on frightening relevance due to the heated discussions surrounding Hamas' attack on Israel in October 2023 and Israel's subsequent war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Among the fictional classics featured in the program are the television film Martha Liebermann – Ein gestohlenes Leben (Wednesday, 12:10 a.m.) by Marco Rossi about the widow of painter Max Liebermann, with Thekla Carola Wied as the Jewish title character. In Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning masterpiece Schindler's List (Friday, November 7, 12:10 a.m.), Liam Neeson plays the role of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who used his position and good relations with the military during the Nazi era to save more than 1,000 Jewish workers from certain death in concentration camps with the help of his accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley).

Ö1 questions, among other things, the work of remembrance without eyewitnesses in Punkt eins: How can we talk about the Holocaust after 80 years? (Friday, 1:00 p.m.) with Patrick Siegele, head of “Holocaust Education” at OeAD – Austria's Agency for Education and Internationalization.

On Saturday, Operation Epsilon and the mother of atomic bombs are on the program of Hörbilder (9:05 a.m.). In this feature, Susanne Ayoub documents the internment of ten German nuclear scientists in April 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.

The ORF.at network and ORF Teletext will also commemorate the November pogroms and provide information about memorial events. TV programs focusing on this topic will be available to stream on ORF ON (including a video collection), and numerous historical recordings, documentaries, and personal memories are available in the video archive “Österreichs Zeitzeuginnen und Zeitzeugen” (Austria's Contemporary Witnesses).