IKG President Deutsch: “We want nothing to do with FPÖ politicians”

Die Presse, November 8, 2024

German-Original: https://www.diepresse.com/19046208/ikg-praesident-deutsch-wir-wollen-mit-politikern-der-fpoe-nichts-zu-tun-haben

The Jewish Community commemorated the victims of the November pogroms with representatives of top politics; National Council President Rosenkranz was not invited. “What Mr. Rosenkranz does in front of the cameras is one thing, and what he then does in the cellar is another,” says IKG President Deutsch.

Today, Friday, the Jewish Community (IKG), together with representatives of the government and the National Council, commemorated the victims of the November progroms at the Shoah Wall of Names in Ostarrichipark. FPÖ politicians were not invited, the Freedom Party President of the National Council, Walter Rosenkranz, wanted to lay a wreath at the memorial on Judenplatz. However, he was prevented from doing so by Jewish demonstrators.

The Kultusrat had unanimously decided on a “cordon sanitaire” against the FPÖ and explicitly against Walter Rosenkranz, explained IKG President Oskar Deutsch to “Ö1” before the memorial event. This is nothing new: “We want nothing to do with FPÖ politicians.”

Deutsch: “Then I can no longer be there in future”

Rosenkranz is a member of a German nationalist fraternity, emphasized Deutsch. He commented on the separate commemoration: “We are remembering the victims. What Mr. Rosenkranz does in front of the cameras is one thing, and what he then does in the cellar is a second thing.”

The office of President of the National Council is also linked to the management of the National Fund and the Cemetery Fund as well as the awarding of the Simon Wiesentals Prize. Deutsch explained that he would no longer be able to be there in future if Rosenkranz was in charge. (kron)

Cityguide App: Take a Walk Through Jewish Vienna with “Ivie”

Kurier, October 24, 2024

German original: https://kurier.at/chronik/oesterreich/cityguide-app-ivie-wientourismus-juedische-wien/402961092

The Vienna Tourist Board's app offers a new city walk to 13 significant sites of Jewish Vienna.

On October 12, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and the highest holiday in the Jewish calendar year, falls on a Thursday this year. The Vienna Tourist Board is taking advantage of this to present an extension of its city guide app “Ivie”: the new city walk is dedicated to Jewish Vienna.

The app guides visitors to 13 places of great importance to Jewish Vienna, including the Jewish Museum, the Sigmund Freud Museum, the Jewish-influenced Carmelite Quarter, and the oldest Jewish cemetery in Austria, located in Vienna's Rossau district. You will be taken to the museum at Judenplatz, the Arnold Schönberg Center, the Jewish City Temple and the Shoah Wall of Names, Vienna's newest and largest Holocaust memorial.

The route also leads to Theodor Herzl's first resting place in the Döbling Cemetery – and Ivie also explains why the father of the State of Israel is no longer buried there.

Part of Vienna's identity

“Vienna is a cosmopolitan city that offers space for all cultures and religions. Jewish life is an essential part of Vienna's identity and an enrichment for the city. In the new 'Jewish Vienna Guide', the Vienna Tourist Board makes this diversity fully accessible to visitors and residents alike,” says Vienna Tourist Board Director Norbert Kettner, welcoming the new Ivie launch.

Without its Jewish residents, the history of Vienna would be unthinkable, says Barbara Staudinger, director of the Jewish Museum Vienna: “Traces of what was once the third largest Jewish community in Europe can be found everywhere: from the Ringstrasse to the municipal housing, from the 1st district to Floridsdorf. There are well-known and lesser-known places to discover in the city that not only tell the story of the four Jewish communities, but also, and above all, the diversity of Jewish cultures in the city of Vienna.”

The new walk complements the existing Ivie offering, which already includes more than 20 walks and tours. The topics are wide-ranging: from Freud to Beethoven, from Sisi to the city's LGBTIQ+ highlights.

“I was very rebellious”: Doctor and contemporary witness Helga Feldner-Busztin passes away

Die Presse, October 22, 2024

German original: https://www.diepresse.com/18994187/ich-war-sehr-aufmuepfig-aerztin-und-zeitzeugin-helga-feldner-busztin-verstorben

Helga Feldner-Busztin survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp. She later practiced as an internist in Vienna and began talking about her memories of the Nazi era in the 1990s. She lived to the age of 95.

The contemporary witness and Holocaust survivor Helga Feldner-Busztin has died at the age of 95. She was born in Vienna in 1929 and was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943 as a so-called Jewish mongrel, where she remained until liberation. She campaigned against forgetting as a contemporary witness into old age and was awarded the Ute Bock Prize for Civil Courage in 2018.

"Then came the terrible star, you were really, really outcast. And that was a role that was very difficult for a rather rebellious twelve or 13-year-old to find her way into. Because I was very rebellious,” Helga Feldner-Busztin later reported on the fall of 1941, when Jews in Vienna had to wear a yellow star cut out of cloth by employees of the Vienna Jewish Community.

“I was walking along the (Franz-Josefs) quay with the star, and suddenly a woman came and gave me a slap and said, 'You Jewish Pig!' For nothing. Well, I was suitably shocked, wasn't I? But later, by chance, at a similar place, also on the quay, another woman came up and put a bag of fruit in my hand and said: 'You poor child!”

Helga Feldner-Busztin was born Helga Pollak in Vienna in 1929 into a largely Jewish family. Her mother, a Jew who had been baptized a Protestant as a child, officially converted to Judaism in 1931. In 1943, Feldner-Busztin, her mother and her sister Elisabeth, later Scheiderbauer, were imprisoned in Theresienstadt concentration camp. First by chance, then through the actions of her mother, she escaped deportation to an extermination camp, according to the memorial project “Weitererzählen”. (tes)

An Elephant in the Room

Wina (Alexia Weiss), October 2024

German original: https://www.wina-magazin.at/ein-elefant-im-raum/

The amendment to the National Fund Act adopted this year stipulates, among other things, that the fund, which was established in 1995, hold an annual conference. On Tuesday, the fund invited guests to the first such symposium on the topic of “Remembrance and Responsibility” in parliament. However, the outcome of the parliamentary elections in September, in which the FPÖ came first, hung over the review of the work of the National Fund and the outlook for remembrance work and the fight against anti-Semitism in the future.

“There is an elephant in the room,” said Andreas Kranebitter, managing scientific director of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW). In nine days, the new President of the National Council is to be elected from the ranks of the FPÖ MPs. ‘He will also be the Chairman of the National Fund,’ said Kranebitter, before making another eye-catching comment: ”I will no longer be sitting here.”

This is not a reaction of defiance to an election result, but to act as if one were fighting anti-Semitism together with people who speak of “globalists” is “not on”. Taking responsibility here also means “standing up against some practices”, he said in the direction of politics.

What he meant by that, not wanting to sit here anymore, WINA Kranebitter asked after the conference. He emphasized that they would not withdraw from committee work, as this would be counterproductive. However, he would definitely not participate in public appearances such as the annual conference of the National Fund or the presentation of the Simon Wiesenthal Prize. The DÖW would not lend itself to such things. And it was important to him to make this clear publicly and in a setting such as this conference.

IKG President Oskar Deutsch also had strong words on the matter: “It is unacceptable that the second-highest-ranking person in the country is a member of a right-wing extremist party. It cannot be. If we know what the President of the National Council has to do, such as chairing the National Fund and the Cemeteries Fund, he is also responsible for the Simon Wiesenthal Prize and much more, then this is a mockery of the victims, those who are still alive and those who have already passed away.” There is no law that requires the party with the highest number of votes to provide the President of the National Council. So there are alternatives. And the election of the National Council presidency is by secret ballot. He therefore called on the MPs to “make the right decision” next week.

A second current topic of this afternoon's conference: the massive increase in anti-Semitism worldwide and also in Austria following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. “All the efforts of the past years, all the remembrance work seemed to be bearing fruit,” emphasized Hannah Lessing, Chair of the National Fund. For a long time, it was therefore justifiably assumed that people learn from history. And yet the situation is now as it is. What can and must be done in the future?

“We have to get out of our bubble,” said Barbara Glück, Director of the Mauthausen Memorial and a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Fund. And: ‘If we stand still, we have lost.’ Perhaps the memorial sites have sometimes taken the easy way out. ‘We sat in our places and waited for people to come to us.’ But it is also important to go out. Speaking of social media: the Mauthausen Memorial is now also represented on TikTok. 300,000 people visit the memorial each year. “With just one video, we can reach three times as many people.”

The IKG President once again emphasized that the last government in particular “did an enormous amount in the fight against anti-Semitism”. “On the other hand, anti-Semitism is not only overtaking us, but, to use an athletic analogy, it is lapping us.” He emphasized that it is the responsibility of all of civil society to take a stand against it - whether in a restaurant, on the soccer field or on the streetcar.

Earlier in the day, outgoing National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka emphasized that while it would be wrong to pretend that anti-Semitism could be permanently eradicated, we must do everything we can to put it in its place. And the fight against anti-Semitism is not the responsibility of the Jewish community, “that is our responsibility”. Reply from Deutsch: He does see it as the responsibility of a Jewish community to fight anti-Semitism, “but not on the front line”.

In any case, remembrance culture also means active engagement in the present, according to Sobotka. For too long, the focus in this fight has been placed only on racially motivated right-wing national anti-Semitism. This had attempted to give anti-Semitism a scientific foundation with eugenics. However, something similar is currently happening from the left: here, too, attempts are being made to create such a foundation, with the apartheid state of Israel and post-colonialism as buzzwords. In addition, there is anti-Semitism among immigrants and in the arts pages.

Like Sobotka and Deutsch, Kranebitter emphasized that the entire society and thus all institutions and organizations are responsible for the fight against antisemitism. “Combating antisemitism is a task for society as a whole, not just for the politics of memory.” Explaining the increase in hostility towards Jews with the failure of institutions such as the DÖW or the memorial sites is “a mantle we do not need to be draped in”.

Mauer Wants to Rescue Nazi Victims from Oblivion

ORF, October 6, 2024

German original: https://noe.orf.at/stories/3275827/

The Nazi crimes in the “Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Mauer-Öhling are to be reappraised. The cemetery and a burial ground were examined for the first time. A complete reappraisal is no longer possible, because parts of the cemetery were built on into the 2000s.

The continuous noise of cars booms over the cemetery wall from the adjacent road. The B121 had a greater impact on the cemetery than noise. A little over 20 years ago, the two-lane road in Mauer (Amstetten district) was widened to four lanes, and the cemetery wall was moved inwards into the cemetery area for this purpose. Anyone driving on the B121 drives over graves from the Nazi era.

“One of the unanswered questions is how many graves really disappeared under the asphalt. At least 80 graves along the road were abandoned, 40 of them were occupied by Nazi euthanasia victims,” says Philipp Mettauer, a historian at the Institute for Jewish History. He is scientifically accompanying the project.

The so-called Mauer-Öhling sanatorium and nursing home was one of the largest in the Ostmark. 2,400 people died here or were sent to Hartheim and Gugging for planned killing. They were psychiatric patients, forced laborers, resettlers and prisoners of war. The real extent only became known in 2019 through a research project.

Cemetery: When the cemetery was overcrowded

Almost 80 years after the end of the war, the process of coming to terms with the past is now beginning. The cemetery and a burial ground were surveyed using geomagnetics and ground-penetrating radar, because it is not known exactly where the graves are located. Most of the cemetery resembles a meadow. “The coffins are lined up one after the other. It was very densely packed here,” says archaeologist Volker Lindinger, who carried out the measurements, glancing at the ground-penetrating radar screen.

Almost nothing is known about the burial ground, right next to the cemetery. The way it was treated can be categorized into the decades in which the victim theory applied in Austria. The field was the scene of a final phase crime. Three weeks before the end of the war, 200 people were buried there, killed by doctors and nurses, by overdoses, injections and a converted electric shock device.

The cemetery, with space for 1,000, was already double occupied. Pits were dug in the adjacent field, 200 dead in mass graves. It is unclear who they were. Then they literally let grass grow over it, planted a forest. “We know the least about this, there is only one photo,” says historian Mettauer. The field was also reduced in size by the B121 road expansion.

The mystery of the wall's relocation

There was also the option of examining the narrow green strip between the B121 and the cemetery wall – the area that was used as a cemetery until 2001. However, this is not going to happen: “There are likely to be graves outside the cemetery. We can't measure there for safety reasons because cars pass by at high speed. I don't subject my employees to that,” explains archaeologist Lindinger. One or more lanes would have to be temporarily closed for this.

These measurements could provide insights into how far the wall was really moved back in the early 2000s. The Federal Monuments Office approved four meters. In the files of the road construction department, the meters vary and the plans are also different: “There are different sources: at least five meters, some say seven, it could also be nine,” says historian Philipp Mettauer.

Unterführung statt jüdischem Friedhof

In den Aufzeichnungen der Friedhofsverwaltung ist lediglich von zwei Gräbern, einem Schädel und einer Hand voll Knochen die Rede, die beim Straßenausbau gefunden worden seien. Das sei angesichts der Dokumente, Bilder und Daten „unrealistisch“, so Mettauer.

So ein großer Umbau war am Friedhof Mauer jedenfalls nichts Neues: In den 1960er-Jahren wurde der jüdische Teil am Friedhof verkleinert, weil eine Unterführung für Fußgänger und Radfahrer gebaut wurde. „Das ist vollkommen in Vergessenheit geraten“, sagt Mettauer, „wie viele Gräber dabei zum Opfer gefallen sind, wissen wir noch nicht“.

Dabei ist Österreich im Staatsvertrag zur Kriegsgräberfürsorge verpflichtet: „Die NS-Euthanasieopfer sind Kriegsopfer. Da hat die Republik Österreich die Verantwortung übernommen, die Gräber auf ewig zu erhalten und zu pflegen.“

In Mauer, there was a longer silence

The Institute for Jewish History has been working for some time on a scientific reappraisal. The project was given momentum by the 2026 state exhibition, which is taking place at the state hospital in Mauer. The situation in the region was “special” for decades: “If we compare it with Vienna, with Spiegelgrund or Steinhof, it only became an issue in the 1990s. Here in Mauer-Öhling, in Amstetten, it was a taboo for another ten, twenty years longer,” says Mettauer.

Considering the extent of the crimes, this is astonishing: ‘It was only in 2010 that the medical records were put into the archive. For so long, the lid was kept on it and the blanket of silence was thick.’ The files were not complete; some of them had previously been deemed not worthy of archiving and thrown away.

But generational change has brought a change of attitude, Mettauer reports. The children and grandchildren of the third and fourth generations are actively researching their family history and scrutinizing the working lives of their forebears as orderlies or doctors in Mauer. The taboo has been broken.

New Stones of Remembrance in Front of the Uniqua Headquarters

Mein Bezirk, October 4, 2024

German original: https://www.meinbezirk.at/leopoldstadt/c-lokales/neue-steine-der-erinnerung-vor-der-uniqua-zentrale_a6933119

Four “Stones of Remembrance” and a memorial plaque were unveiled in front of the Uniqua headquarters in Leopoldstadt, commemorating the fate of 56 Jewish victims of Nazism. The initiative is part of the “Path of Remembrance” in the 2nd district and is supported by Uniqua to promote historical reappraisal at the location.

VIENNA/LEOPOLDSTADT. Four new “Stones of Remembrance” were unveiled in front of the Uniqa headquarters. These are part of the “Path of Remembrance”, a project of the “Stones of Remembrance” association, which commemorates the fate of Jewish victims of National Socialism.

In the presence of Roswitha Hammer and Daliah Hindler, representatives of the association, and René Knapp, member of the management board of the Uniqa Group, a memorial plaque was also attached to the building at Untere Donaustraße 27.

Coming to terms with history

Both new memorials draw attention to the fate of the 56 Jewish people who once lived at Untere Donaustraße 23, 25 and 27 and were deported from there to Nazi extermination camps.

UNIQA is supporting the campaign as part of its long-term efforts to come to terms with the history of its location. “In addition to the ‘Namensturm’, which has been lit since 2018 and commemorates the anniversary of the so-called ‘Reichspogromnacht’, supporting this project is also an expression of how we see ourselves as an international company that is opposed to any form of exclusion, racism and violence,” explained René Knapp at the opening.

The accompanying historical-biographical research was carried out by Albena Zlatanova and Wolfgang Gasser, historians at the “National Fund of the Republic of Austria for the Remembrance of the Victims of National Socialism” under the direction of Hannah Lessing.

Concentration Camp Survivor Daniel Chanoch Has Passed Away

ORF, September 20, 2024

German original: https://ooe.orf.at/stories/3275300/Daniel Chanoch, who was born in Lithuania and survived six Nazi concentration camps, has passed away at the age of 92. Chanoch had expressed the wish to see a memorial erected at the site of the former Gunskirchen subcamp in Upper Austria, the Mauthausen Committee reported in a press release on Tuesday.

Chanoch was also deported by the Nazis to the concentration camps in Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Mauthausen. He described Gunskirchen as “hell on earth” and persistently campaigned for the establishment of a memorial.

“We will do everything in our power to fulfill Daniel Chanoch's wish for a memorial in Gunskirchen. Our thoughts are with his family in these difficult hours,” said Willi Mernyi, chairman of the Austrian Mauthausen Committee, in a statement.

Exhibition: The Shoah Will Not Let Go of Families

ORF, September 17, 2024

German original: https://religion.orf.at/stories/3226649

Family secrets, obsessive preoccupation and silence: the trauma of the Shoah continues to affect the children and grandchildren of those who suffered a severe trauma. The exhibition “The Third Generation. The Holocaust in Family Memory” at the Jewish Museum Vienna sheds light on this continued impact in the families of survivors.

Curated by Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz and Sabine Apostolo, the exhibition takes a very personal approach to this sensitive topic: artworks, videos and everyday objects reflect the very personal way in which the horror of the Shoah is dealt with. Survivors were often unable to talk about what they had experienced, let alone come to terms with it – all the more burdening was its manifestation in families, explained Kohlbauer-Fritz in an interview with religion.ORF.at.

The grandchildren are often the decisive factor in survivors' engagement with the past, which often comes late; what could not be said to the children and what was always palpable for them, but not visible, can finally come to light in the more unbiased interaction with the third generation. The exhibition reflects the unspoken in families, which cannot be grasped, with transparent “flags” draped behind the objects: images and texts can be vaguely seen but not read.

Lullabies about Auschwitz

The “Trauma Room” is dedicated to the seepage of horror into childhood, where you can listen to lullabies in Yiddish and Romani that have Auschwitz as their theme. “Inherited traumas were heavily investigated by psychoanalysts who belonged to the second generation,“ says Kohlbauer-Fritz. The repressed is depicted in the eerily colorful ‘Kindertapete’ (Children's Wallpaper) by artist Jonathan Rotsztain (”Patterns,” 2019) in the form of nightmarish images: persecution and fear as a legacy, inherited trauma as a child's everyday life.

The fact that in many families there was and is one person who was and is “responsible” for remembrance, so that others did not have to deal with it, is the subject of the impressive sculpture “Witch” (1995) by Dwora Morag, who saw herself in this role and cast her face in a huge “memorial candle”. Dan Glaubach's “Re – vision” (1996) impressively demonstrates the depth of trauma experienced by survivors. What is probably a snowy landscape with vineyards for most people was interpreted by Holocaust victims as concentration camp roll calls.

What is the grandchild generation allowed to do?

The Israeli-German documentary film “The Apartment” (2011) tells the story of the enigmatic friendship between a Zionist family and a high-ranking Nazi, which continued even after the war and was apparently supposed to be kept secret from the children and grandchildren. Among other things, this raises the question of the responsibility of the third generation in their role as “enlighteners”, says curator Apostolo: “Are they allowed to do everything?” The desire to “find out everything” often collided with the older family members' need to forget.

Simple objects – a sewing box, a Jewish prayer shawl (tallit), a summer dress – were loaned to the museum, many of them from the Jewish Community Vienna (IKG); they come from the USA, Canada and several European countries and are representative of the passing on of (family) history.

The history of Burgenland's Jews also extends to the present day, with many of them deported by the Nazis. The town of Mattersdorf was recreated in Israel as “Kirjat Mattersdorf,” as evidenced by a street sign in Hebrew, Arabic and German.

Remembrance in film and pop culture

Memories have to be recreated in a project that uses the recesses in old door frames to make new mezuzahs, small script capsules that devout Jews attach to the front door. The exhibition also juxtaposes these with elements of memory in popular culture, including the results of the “memory journey” of the successful novel “Everything is illuminated” (2022) by Jonathan Safran Foer and more recent drawings inspired by Art Spiegelman's famous Holocaust comic “Maus”.

Exhibition note

“The Third Generation. The Holocaust in Family Memory”, Jewish Museum Vienna, Dorotheergasse 11, 1010 Vienna, from September 18

Christian Boltanski's photo installation “Le Lycee Chases en 1931” (1987) shows the (deliberately) blurred photos of pupils at a Jewish school, further distorted by the yellow light of numerous spotlights – a symbol of the disappearance of their identities. Juxtaposed with the artwork is a later examination of it, a project that sought to identify and locate the people depicted – very successfully, according to curator Apostolo: people in the pictures were recognized by their descendants.

A little humor

Among the many sad and harrowing exhibits, there is also a little humor. An excerpt from the cabaret “3rd Generation Cabaret” can be seen in the exhibition; the program will then be performed at the Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom.

The self-portraits by Canadian photographer Rafael Goldchain, “I Am My Family” (1990-2008), are also amazingly funny. In them, Goldchain poses as his own “relatives” in various disguises – male and female, with beards or wigs, dead or still alive, some invented.

The re-traumatization of October 7

The final section, “The Third Generation: The Holocaust in Family Memory,” deals with the massacre of October 7, 2023. The stories of Jews and non-Jews who were murdered, abducted, and tortured, or who hid among corpses to survive, led to a collective re-traumatization.

The room dedicated to this event deals with the shock, anger and despair that followed, as well as the resurgence of anti-Semitism worldwide, but also with the question of the loss of empathy with others – also and especially in war.

Johanna Grillmayer, religion.ORF.at

Exhibition: Shoah Does Not Let Families Go

ORF (Austrian Broadcasting, September 12, 2024

German original: Der Wiener Stadttempel soll nach 36 Jahren umfassend saniert werden - Inland - derStandard.at › Inland

The largest and oldest active synagogue in Austria was the only one not to be completely burned down in 1938 nt, the listed building complex will be 200 years old in 2026.

The Vienna City Temple of the Jewish Community (IKG) in Seitenstettengasse is not only the largest synagogue in Austria, it is also the oldest that is still active. Only the Seitenstetten Temple was not completely burnt down by the Nazis during the pogrom night in November 1938. This also had to do with its location in the narrow city center.

"Come to its gates with thanksgiving, to its courts with praise!" is written in Hebrew above the street-side entrance. The synagogue is not only the spiritual center of the Jews, around 800 of whom come to services on the high holidays, it is also visited by around 12,000 people a year as part of guided tours, including many schoolchildren.

Local inspection

On Thursday morning, a brief site inspection took place with IKG President Oskar Deutsch, IKG Secretary General Benjamin Nägele, Chief Rabbi Jaron Engelmayer and architect Eric-Emanuel Tschaikner (KENH Architekten ZT GmbH). They told the media representatives about the comprehensive plans for the city temple and the community center in Seitenstettengasse.

The listed building complex, which was opened in 1826, was designed by Austrian architect Joseph Kornhäusel in the neoclassical style. Rather inconspicuous on the outside, as prescribed by the laws for non-Catholic sacred buildings at the time, the city temple only reveals its full beauty when you enter it. Guests are particularly impressed by the sky-blue dome with 600 stars.

However, it has been 36 years since the last renovation. In the fall of 2025, after the major holidays (Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, as well as Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles), extensive work will therefore begin and be completed as planned in the fall of 2026 - before the holidays. The renovation of the community center will then begin in 2026. In the same year, the ICG will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the temple.

A lot has been planned for this time: including the restoration of the street-side and listed windows, the renovation of the façade of the ensemble, an improved fire protection concept including necessary conversion work, the renewal of the entrance situation and the foyer, the activation of a second staircase, the redesign of the foyer and the adaptation of security precautions. The Seitenstetten Temple was the scene of terrorist attacks in 1979, 1981 and 2020.

Barrier-free places

Furthermore, the sanitary facilities are to be renovated and made partially barrier-free, floors and furniture need to be repaired or replaced, and the lighting, building services, ventilation, acoustics and heating are to be renewed and made energy-efficient. The prayer pulpit is also to be adapted, prayer benches replaced and additional barrier-free spaces created.

This will cost around 9.8 million euros, with the IKG inviting the whole of Austria to contribute to the financing through donations. "Today I am proud to be able to say: The City Temple, like Judaism itself, belongs to Austria," said IKG President Oskar Deutsch on Thursday, "it is a symbol of our republic and therefore affects us all. The City Temple and the community center stand for a lively Jewish presence."

Deutsch invites "the entire population to get involved" and support the project: "Every donation helps us. In doing so, you are sending a signal for an open, democratic and diverse Austria." Incidentally, for donations of 2500 euros or more, one of the stars in the dome will be dedicated to the donor.

The Vienna City Temple is to be extensively renovated after 36 years

Der Standard, September 12, 2024

German original: Der Wiener Stadttempel soll nach 36 Jahren umfassend saniert werden - Inland - derStandard.at › Inland

The largest and oldest active synagogue in Austria was the only one not to be completely burned down in 1938 nt, the listed building complex will be 200 years old in 2026.

The Vienna City Temple of the Jewish Community (IKG) in Seitenstettengasse is not only the largest synagogue in Austria, it is also the oldest that is still active. Only the Seitenstetten Temple was not completely burnt down by the Nazis during the pogrom night in November 1938. This also had to do with its location in the narrow city center.

"Come to its gates with thanksgiving, to its courts with praise!" is written in Hebrew above the street-side entrance. The synagogue is not only the spiritual center of the Jews, around 800 of whom come to services on the high holidays, it is also visited by around 12,000 people a year as part of guided tours, including many schoolchildren.

Local inspection

On Thursday morning, a brief site inspection took place with IKG President Oskar Deutsch, IKG Secretary General Benjamin Nägele, Chief Rabbi Jaron Engelmayer and architect Eric-Emanuel Tschaikner (KENH Architekten ZT GmbH). They told the media representatives about the comprehensive plans for the city temple and the community center in Seitenstettengasse.

The listed building complex, which was opened in 1826, was designed by Austrian architect Joseph Kornhäusel in the neoclassical style. Rather inconspicuous on the outside, as prescribed by the laws for non-Catholic sacred buildings at the time, the city temple only reveals its full beauty when you enter it. Guests are particularly impressed by the sky-blue dome with 600 stars.

However, it has been 36 years since the last renovation. In the fall of 2025, after the major holidays (Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, as well as Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles), extensive work will therefore begin and be completed as planned in the fall of 2026 - before the holidays. The renovation of the community center will then begin in 2026. In the same year, the ICG will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the temple.

A lot has been planned for this time: including the restoration of the street-side and listed windows, the renovation of the façade of the ensemble, an improved fire protection concept including necessary conversion work, the renewal of the entrance situation and the foyer, the activation of a second staircase, the redesign of the foyer and the adaptation of security precautions. The Seitenstetten Temple was the scene of terrorist attacks in 1979, 1981 and 2020.

Barrier-free places

Furthermore, the sanitary facilities are to be renovated and made partially barrier-free, floors and furniture need to be repaired or replaced, and the lighting, building services, ventilation, acoustics and heating are to be renewed and made energy-efficient. The prayer pulpit is also to be adapted, prayer benches replaced and additional barrier-free spaces created.

This will cost around 9.8 million euros, with the IKG inviting the whole of Austria to contribute to the financing through donations. "Today I am proud to be able to say: The City Temple, like Judaism itself, belongs to Austria," said IKG President Oskar Deutsch on Thursday, "it is a symbol of our republic and therefore affects us all. The City Temple and the community center stand for a lively Jewish presence."

Deutsch invites "the entire population to get involved" and support the project: "Every donation helps us. In doing so, you are sending a signal for an open, democratic and diverse Austria." Incidentally, for donations of 2500 euros or more, one of the stars in the dome will be dedicated to the donor.

Jewish Community Accuses ORF of “Spreading Hamas Lies”

Der Standard, September 6, 2024

German original: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000235564/israelitische-kultusgemeinde-wirft-orf-verbreitung-von-hamas-luegen-vor

ORF rejects accusation of tendentious reporting. Jewish Community: “Claims by terrorists” in “Weltjournal” stir up sentiment against Israel

Vienna – On Wednesday evening, the Austrian public broadcaster ORF aired the documentary Gaza War – Hell on Earth, which reports on the suffering in Gaza, “narrated by Palestinian journalists in Gaza, by doctors and paramedics – and from the perspective of a child,” as stated in the announcement. Now the The Jewish Community (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde - IKG) has made serious accusations against the ORF, accusing the public broadcaster of “uncontradictedly spreading narratives of the terrorist organization Hamas”.

Update: The ORF rejects the accusation of tendentious reporting. The report “Gaza War – Hell on Earth” in the Weltjournal shows the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population in the face of the massive Israeli military attacks on Gaza that followed the bloody Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7 and continue to this day. Palestinian reporters, doctors and children from Gaza talk about how they are experiencing the war. Since the outbreak of the war, the Weltjournal has repeatedly shown the effects on both the Israeli and the Palestinian side.

The ORF refers to the contributions “The Iron Fist of Hamas”, shown in October 2023, “Terror attack October 7 - how could it happen?” (November 2023), “Gaza – Fight for Survival” (April 2024), “Israel's Critical Voices” and “A Turning Point – Israel after October 7”. “On the upcoming anniversary of the Hamas massacre in Israel, the Weltjournal on October 2, 2024, will once again devote extensive coverage to the victims of the unprecedented terrorist attack,” the ORF announced upon request.

“This concoction poses a threat to our community. But it is also unjournalistic and damages people's trust in the ORF, where many reputable journalists strive daily to provide the best, namely correct, information. Dangerous programs like the Weltjournal also damage the reputation of the entire media house. Trust in foreign reporting has now reached an all-time low. It is high time that the ORF took countermeasures and that objectivity and journalistic integrity were restored in the Weltjournal,” said IKG President Oskar Deutsch. On Wednesday, the Weltjournal had presented Israel ”in an unprecedented light as the ultimate evil and disseminated Hamas propaganda that had long since been refuted.”

“It is legitimate, journalistically imperative and also humanly necessary to document and report on the suffering caused by war,” said Deutsch. ‘Every child who is harmed in a war is an apocalypse in itself. But blaming one side, namely the Jewish side, over and over again, is wrong and spreads antisemitism,’ said Deutsch. The “spread of this Hamas propaganda” is “endangering Jewish life worldwide”.

In a statement, Deutsch reports that the IKG's antisemitism reporting office has recorded “an increase in hate mail and decidedly antisemitic graffiti on house walls” after the documentary was broadcast on ORF, including, according to IGK, calls for violence against Jews. Protective measures have been increased. Deutsch: “A connection with the Weltjournal of September 4, 2024 cannot be confirmed, of course, but it cannot be ruled out either.” He demands “corrections, structural and personnel consequences” from the ORF.

The ORF also stated in response to the allegations: “As a public media company, the ORF has an obligation to provide the general public with comprehensive information about current events and topics. Since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, the ORF's TV, radio, and online news formats have been reporting extensively and in detail on the events in Israel and the Gaza Strip, as well as on the international dimension of the conflict.”

The ORF continues: “In order to paint a comprehensive picture of the events, the ORF media, in accordance with their mandate, are dedicating themselves not only to current reporting but also to the background of the conflict and, in this context, are taking into account the assessments of various experts, descriptions of those affected in Israel and the Gaza Strip, as well as statements from political representatives.” (red, Sept. 6, 2024, after publication of ORF statement added)

Jewish Military Cemetery Reopens

ORF (Austrian Public Broadcasting), August 22, 2024

German original: https://wien.orf.at/stories/3270092/

The Jewish military cemetery of the First World War at Vienna's Central Cemetery was reopened today after a two-year renovation. The ceremony, which included a wreath-laying, was framed by guards of honor from the police and the army, as well as Jewish prayers.

Together with the Jewish Community, the Ministry of the Interior has spent around 250,000 euros over the past two years on the restoration of around 450 graves of Jewish soldiers from the First World War and the local monument.

Opening with a guard of honor and prayers

On Thursday, Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) reopened the Jewish military cemetery in the presence of Minister of Defense Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP) and Oskar Deutsch, President of the Jewish Community in Vienna. The ceremony, which included the laying of wreaths, was framed by guards of honor from the police and the army, as well as Jewish prayers.

“It is part of our responsibility to remember all those who lost their lives in the two world wars. Today, we remember the Austro-Hungarian soldiers of Jewish faith in the First World War as an expression of a modern and contemporary culture of remembrance,” said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) in a statement. The contribution of Jewish soldiers was not only forgotten after the First World War, but their families were then expelled or murdered in the Holocaust. The Ministry of the Interior is legally responsible for the preservation and maintenance of war graves from the First and Second World Wars.

Israel Compared to Nazis: Conditional Sentence

ORF, August 5, 2024

German original: https://salzburg.orf.at/stories/3267915/

A man from Salzburg was sentenced at the regional court on Monday for comparing Zionists and Israel to Nazis on the internet – for incitement, incitement to hatred against Israelis and Jews. The 50-year-old man asserted in court that he was a pacifist who wanted nothing more than for all wars to end.

The 50-year-old published five pictures of children bleeding and killed in the Gaza Strip on social media. According to the prosecution, he wrote: "Zionists are Nazis and all those who support these monsters." He published this after the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, said the man from Salzburg.

He was under the influence of strong painkillers at the time. His words were "politically incorrect". He is a pacifist in the spirit of the Indian national leader Mahatma Gandhi, who practiced passive resistance and encouraged people to oppose all forms of war.

Judge: "Anti-Semitic comparison, often on the internet"

The judge said that it is illegal to make a completely indiscriminate comparison between Zionists who advocated the founding of a Jewish state and National Socialists and their mass murders. This comparison is antisemitic and often appears on the internet. And the judge said that a signal must be sent against this increasingly powerful current, which leads to hatred and discord.

His sentence is seven months' imprisonment on probation – for incitement. It is already legally binding. The convicted man sees this conviction as an opportunity – presumably to weigh his words on the internet more carefully.

Surprising Discovery at the Jewish Museum

ORF, August 4, 2024

German original: https://wien.orf.at/stories/3267695/

A surprising discovery was made during archive work at the Jewish Museum Vienna: historical files from the possession of the Jewish Community Vienna (IKG) from the time of National Socialism and the immediate post-war period were discovered.

"The files that have been found bear witness to the National Socialist policy of extermination of the Jewish population of Vienna," says museum director Barbara Staudinger. "But they also tell of the immediate post-war period and the situation of the displaced persons."

Patient books, escape documents and a death register

"This is another piece of the puzzle that will help to provide a complete documentation of the crimes of the National Socialists, but also of the new beginning of Jewish life in Austria." The documents are now to be returned to the Jewish Community. The files include, for example, two patient books from the Rothschild Hospital from the years 1938/39.

From 1938 to 1943, the hospital of the Jewish Community was the only one in Vienna that was open to Jews. The bundles of files also contain documents relating to the flight of Viennese Jews to Cuba and the USA, as well as a death register of the Jewish Community.

Archive only discovered in storage room in 2000

Similar finds have been made in the past. The archive of the Jewish Community, which had been recovered after 1945, was only rediscovered in a storage room in Vienna's 15th district in 2000.

The files now discovered in the Jewish Museum Vienna belong to this archive. "This find once again clearly shows how important historical research is, even within museums," says Staudinger. "Without it, the files would probably never have been found."

Collection online from fall

The archive holdings of the Jewish Museum Vienna are currently being digitized. This involves research and inventory work. For example, bundles of files are being opened and the documents and papers they contain are being individually recorded for the first time. This work is being done in preparation for the museum's own online collection, which will be published in the fall.

Anti-Semitism: one in Three Jews is Considering Leaving Austria

Kurier, July 11, 2024

German original: https://kurier.at/politik/inland/juden-eu-antisemitismus/402923550

According to a recent report, 80 percent of Jews feel threatened by the growing anti-Semitism in the EU.

The vast majority of Jews in Europe continue to be affected by anti-Semitism in their daily lives.

This is the conclusion of a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), which was conducted before the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli army offensive in the Gaza Strip.

80 percent of respondents believe that anti-Semitism has increased in the five years prior to the survey. Among the participants in Austria, 76 percent felt the same way. For the year prior to the survey, 38 percent in this country reported having been the victim of anti-Semitic hostility – similar to the EU average. Five percent were also attacked in that year.

Security concerns in public

These experiences lead many people to feel compelled to conceal their Jewish identity in public. In Austria, 29 percent of Jews never wear Jewish symbols in public because of security concerns. Among all study participants, the figure was as high as 48 percent. For 66 percent (EU: 76 percent), this was at least occasionally the case.

70 percent of those surveyed felt that they were at least occasionally held responsible for the policies of the Israeli government because of their Jewishness (EU: 75 percent). Three-quarters of the study participants across Europe felt the same way.

The FRA report at a glance:

• Increasing anti-Semitism: 80% of respondents believe that anti-Semitism has increased in their country in the five years prior to the survey.

• Hate on the internet: 90% of respondents have been confronted with anti-Semitism online.

• Anti-Semitism in public: 56% of respondents were confronted with anti-Semitism offline by acquaintances and 51% encountered anti-Semitic content in the media.

• Anti-Semitic harassment: 37% of respondents said they had been harassed in the year prior to the survey because of their Jewish identity.

• War in the Middle East: 75% of respondents said that they were held responsible for the actions of the Israeli government because they are Jews.

• Living in hiding: 76% conceal their Jewish identity at least occasionally.

• Emigration: Almost half of the respondents (45%) had thought about emigrating in the five years prior to the survey. In Austria, the figure was 31%.

"Jewish life severely restricted"

"Europe is experiencing a wave of anti-Semitism, partly fueled by the conflict in the Middle East," warns FRA Director Sirpa Rautio in a statement on the report. "This greatly restricts the possibility of a safe and dignified Jewish life."

It is the third FRA report on anti-Semitism. For this, around 8,000 Jews from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Spain, the Czech Republic and Hungary were surveyed in the first half of 2023. According to the EU agency, 96 percent of Jews in the EU live in these 13 countries. In Austria, 363 people were interviewed. The agency estimates that the Jewish population in this country is 13,650.

Survey: Many Jews in the EU are Afraid

ORF, July 11, 2024

German original: https://religion.orf.at/stories/3225828/

The vast majority of Jews in Europe continue to be affected by anti-Semitism in their daily lives. This is the conclusion of a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).

The study was conducted before the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli army offensive in the Gaza Strip. 80 percent of those surveyed believe that anti-Semitism has increased in the five years prior to the survey.

Among the participants in Austria, 76 percent felt the same way. For the year before the survey, 38 percent in this country reported having been victims of anti-Semitic hostility – similar to the EU average. Five percent were also attacked in that year.

"Wave of anti-Semitism"

These experiences lead many people to feel compelled to conceal their Jewish identity in public. In Austria, 29 percent of Jews never wear Jewish symbols in public for security reasons. Among all study participants, the figure was as high as 48 percent. For 66 percent (EU: 76 percent), this was at least occasionally the case.

70 percent of respondents felt that they were at least occasionally held responsible for the policies of the Israeli government because of their Jewishness (EU: 75 percent). Three-quarters of the study participants across Europe felt the same way.

"Europe is experiencing a wave of anti-Semitism, which is partly fueled by the conflict in the Middle East," warns FRA Director Sirpa Rautio in a press release about the report. "This severely limits the possibility of a safe and dignified Jewish life." The development jeopardizes the success of the EU's anti-Semitism strategy, which was adopted in 2021, FRA Director Rautio added.

Third FRA report

This is the third FRA report on anti-Semitism. To produce it, around 8,000 Jews from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Spain, the Czech Republic and Hungary were surveyed in the first half of 2023. According to the EU agency, 96 percent of Jews in the EU live in these 13 countries. In Austria, 363 people were interviewed. The agency estimates that the Jewish population in this country is 13,650.

Thoughts of a Cosmopolitan Citizen

Kurier, July 7, 2024
German orginal: https://kurier.at/kultur/gedanken-eines-weltlaeufigen-buergerlichen/402921602

Martin Engelberg reflects on his Jewish identity in the context of Austrian contemporary history and politics.

By Rudolf Mitlöhner

Martin Engelberg is unlikely to be a member of the next National Council. The Jewish psychoanalyst, publicist and management consultant has been a member of the ÖVP since 2017: an asset in terms of cosmopolitanism, intellectuality and elegance – qualities that would suit the House in general and the People's Party in particular in the future.

Now Engelberg has written a book: "Absolutely Jewish" (the author thanks KURIER culture editor Thomas Trenkler for "reading the manuscript and providing valuable suggestions"). Engelberg draws a broad, autobiographically connoted bow. What constitutes "Jewish identity" for him? "Seclusion, discrimination and persecution" over the centuries have produced specific "virtues of Judaism": "starting again after disasters", "optimism", "creativity".

"Stable value system"

Perhaps it is these virtues that allow Engelberg to counter the widespread narrative of an increase in anti-Semitism. "In my personal experience, traditional anti-Semitism has become less prevalent over the last few decades," he writes, referring to Austria. But in general, he also believes that "Jews in Western countries are better off today than ever before in history". The author also very clearly rejects the instrumentalization of the Nazi era and the Holocaust for current political debates, for example in the confrontation with the FPÖ. The latter cannot be "effectively and, above all, permanently combated by a cordon sanitaire. Certainly not by inappropriate and inappropriate criticism and Nazi comparisons."

The author defends Sebastian Kurz against accusations of populism and credits the former chancellor with a "very stable liberal-conservative value system". And what's more: "Sebastian Kurz's rejection of almost uncontrolled immigration is also very directly related to the protection of this value system."

The most touching part: the words that Engelberg finds for his wife Danielle Spera and his three – now grown-up – children.

Forgotten Places: A Look at Austria's Jewish History

ORF (Austrian Public Broadcasting), June 23, 2024
German original: https://orf.at/stories/3361136/

Before 1938, 200,000 Jews lived in Austria. During the Nazi era, tens of thousands were murdered and over 100,000 were driven out. Today, around 15,000 Jews live in the country. The Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments has now compiled a list of Jewish sites in Austria, from medieval prayer houses to Jewish cemeteries, reports ZIB1. ORF.at has created an interactive map from this list, which allows users to discover Jewish history.

One of these places is the Jewish cemetery in Frauenkirchen in Burgenland. The last burial there took place in 1956: a family had fled to freedom across Lake Neusiedl during the Hungarian uprising, but their little daughter drowned. The Jewish cemetery was the place where the girl could be buried according to religious rites. There is no longer a gravestone.

The Catholic basilica in Frauenkirchen is a popular destination for many day-trippers, but the Jewish cemetery in the immediate vicinity is abandoned and forgotten. Around 400 Jews lived in the Seewinkel district before the Second World War, but only one returned after the war. The Jewish community was wiped out by the Nazi regime.

Over 400 of these Jewish memorials and monuments, which the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments has recorded in a directory, are shown on the interactive map above. The map includes around 300 places of worship and over 70 cemeteries, offering an insight into Jewish history. The memorials range from synagogues dating back to the Middle Ages to well-preserved cemeteries, such as the one in Frauenkirchen.

Few people visit the cemetery

In Judaism, the dead are not to be disturbed, and graves are not to be disturbed. They are believed to remain until the resurrection of the dead. To visit the cemetery today, you have to get the key for the cemetery gate from the municipal office. The number of gravestones shows how large the community once was.

Right next to the cemetery gate is a small, single-storey building: the Tahara House. This is where the dead were washed and prepared for burial. The cemetery caretaker had a small apartment in the building, and the entrance gate is a slight reminder of its former function: the round arch above the entrance is made of colored glass, giving it the appearance of a modest church window. The door itself is locked; the owner uses the building as a storage room and access is not permitted.

Hardly any Jewish returnees to rural communities

"In Burgenland there were the famous 'seven communities'," explains Paul Mahringer from the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments in an interview with ORF. "There was a vibrant Jewish community here for centuries. Today, everything is owned by the Vienna Jewish Community. Hardly anyone from rural Judaism has returned to their old homeland." The seven communities, seven towns in what is now northern and central Burgenland, became places of refuge for Jews expelled from Vienna in the 17th century.

The Esterhazy princes granted protection to the "highly princely Esterhazy Jews", as they were officially known, in return for substantial payments. In most regions of Austria, Jews were not allowed to take up residence until the second half of the 19th century. It was only the 1867 Basic Law that granted them freedom of settlement. Before that, they were dependent on the goodwill of the local princes: they could place Jews under their protection and usually made a good profit from doing so.

Sheltered in the shadow of the castles

Just how necessary it was to protect the noble patron can be seen in Gattendorf, twenty kilometers north of Frauenkirchen. The "Judenhof" is built directly onto the baroque palace. This close structural connection shows, on the one hand, that the protection was meant seriously, and on the other hand, that the Esterhazy family owned enough palaces: Gattendorf Palace was no longer used as a residence by them very early on, but as a granary.

Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts wohnten jüdische Familien mit rund 250 Mitgliedern in diesem dörflichen Schutzgebiet und Ghetto. Es gab eine Synagoge und eine Mikwe – ein Bad für die rituellen Waschungen. Heute stehen nur noch die ehemaligen Wohngebäude, seit Jahrzehnten unbenutzt. Die Synagoge wurde im Jahr 1996 abgerissen – mit Genehmigung der zuständigen Behörden.

Hier habe sich in den vergangenen Jahren einiges geändert, so Mahringer. „Das hier ist der letzte Überrest des ländlichen, dörflichen Judentums des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Es ist das sozialhistorische Zeugnis einer Lebensweise, die ausgelöscht wurde. Es ist sozusagen eine dreidimensionale geschichtliche Quelle.“ Die jüdische Bevölkerung von Gattendorf und Frauenkirchen war arm. Aufgrund ihrer Religion waren sie von Handwerk und Landwirtschaft ausgeschlossen. Was blieb, war der Kleinhandel.

A testament to poverty and hardship

The "Judenhof" makes the poverty and hardship of life at that time tangible. The building is cramped and unadorned, completely lacking in the monumental features that one otherwise associates with the term "monument". According to Mahringer, at least the roof has been renovated. The owner had received funding from the Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments, but also had to meet certain requirements for the preservation of the building.

However, few people are happy when the monument conservationists come. "Can we finally tear it down?" was the first thing the neighbors said when we came for the first time to inspect it," says Mahringer. But the building was – unlike the synagogue – classified as worthy of protection. "That doesn't mean that it has to be made freely accessible. It doesn't have to be a museum," he explains, "but it can't be allowed to fall into disrepair any more.

The view of what should be preserved for future generations has changed. They are now also witnesses to everyday life, they are also a reference to poverty and the struggle for survival, not just to splendor and pomp.

A painful reminder of the Holocaust

The testimonies of Austria's Jewish history are still particularly sensitive in terms of perception: the family that owned a Jewish prayer house in a small community in the Vienna Woods refused to allow the ORF team to inspect the building – for fear of further visitors.

The relationship with Judaism is still a special one in Austria. It is a shared history, but it is not an easy one. The Jewish cemetery in Frauenkirchen shows this in an almost painful way: the only new stone at this otherwise abandoned place is dedicated to the Rosenfeld family: grandparents, mother, two little girls, born in 1936 and 1938. They all died on the same day, June 15, 1944, in the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz.

Fritz Dittlbacher (text), ORF News, Sandra Schober (data), Lukas Krummholz (image), sofe (editing), all ORF.at

This report accompanies the program ZIB1, ORF2, June 23, 2024.

How a Poet from Lviv Speaks for the Victims of Babyn Jar

Der Standard, June 20, 2024
German original: https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000225039/wie-eine-lyrikerin-aus-lwiw-die-opfer-von-babyn-jar-zur-sprache-bringt

Ronald Pohl

Marianna Kijanowska's band "Babyn Jar. Stimmen" gives the Jewish dead of the Kiev massacre of 1941 their right to be heard.

It is "Grandpa Yakov" who knows what is in store for him and the other Ukrainian Jews. The old man has been shot. The feathers of his pillow are "piercing through" his sickbed. In Marianna Kijanowska's collection of poems, Babyn Jar. Voices are subject to names like things, strictly lower case.

The Jews in Kiev had few possessions left in September 1941. The clothes they were wearing, including a wedding dress that no longer made sense after the groom had been murdered by the Nazis' special forces. Some of the elderly were clearing household items into the attic. But Grandpa Yakov "cries and begs us for death." He "asks quietly / whether we realize that it is now time for us to die too." Pause. "Then he screams, 'Get out of here, but kill the cat first.'"

The enormity of the massacre at Babyn Jar is based on the particular diligence of the Nazi murderers. 34,000 Jews, among them a disproportionate number of the elderly, women and children, were driven into a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev on September 29/30, 1941 and shot in large numbers.

It is one of the most infamous aspects of Soviet politics that for a long time no commemoration of this major crime took place. The Jewish victims were not singled out in any way, but rather the unity of all Soviet citizens was emphasized from a class point of view.

Shostakovich's setting

It took courageous "people's poets" like Yevgeny Evtushenko, who wrote a poem entitled Babi Yar in 1961, to provide the first clues, after which Shostakovich set the text to music in his 13th symphony. It immediately became a worldwide success.

Author Marianna Kijanowska, born in Lviv in 1973, trampled on the memory of the Jews in Ukraine: unintentionally, as a child she played with fragments of stone slabs in the marketplace. Only later did she realize that they were grave slabs from the Jewish cemetery, which had been abandoned.

Her memorial for the victims of Babyn Jar comprises 65 voices: the victims realize the inevitability of their fate. They accept it; often they examine the testimonies of themselves and their peers. Just by naming their names, a space of resonance is created: Alik, Avram, Khaviva, Yanyk, Yasha, Lyalya, Lyova, Mykola, Shoryk, Zilya, Zylunya... "The last cup will soon be handed out," it says in one of the heart-rending litanies.

In fact, some of these tentative poems resemble prayers. Claudia Dathe's translation weaves a dense web of phonetic references. She makes assonances (vocal consonance) audible. The effect is archaic, as both the author and translator make use of an elementary vocabulary based primarily on two- and three-syllable nouns. With sporadically interspersed verses such as "und blutschwarze mohnblüten quellen" (and blood-black poppy blossoms well up), the boundaries of good taste are almost reached.

Guilty respect

Who is authorized to speak on behalf of so many people who were killed – and yet not to inappropriately appropriate the fates of others? Through her project, which she pursues with great seriousness, Kijanowska pays her guilty respect to the victims. It was a large number of local militiamen who assisted the German murderers: they carry out their dirty work here under the cover and collective term "polizaj".

Babyn Jar. Stimmen was written in 2017, and Kijanowska says that the process cost her her hair. The book was distilled from hundreds of attempts. It is a pressing reminder to take up the history of Ukrainian collaborators. Such acts of self-reflection seem to be absolutely necessary – especially now, when the invasion of Russian aggressors on Ukrainian soil is costing countless victims, including those of war crimes.

"We are all Jews now," says one of the many breathtaking texts. It is not false appropriation that points the way to coming to terms with guilt and disinterest; it is the speaking of empathy, which only great, crazy authors can command. In a theologically unprecedented poem, one of the doomed speaks the following scandalous couplet: "The only thing that is difficult is that I could not say goodbye to God / so I have to believe, even if it is without salvation." (Ronald Pohl, 20.6.2024)

Marianna Kijanowska, "Babyn Jar. Stimmen". Poems in Ukrainian and German. Translation and epilogue: Claudia Dathe. €24.70 / 160 pages. Suhrkamp, Berlin 2024

International Jewish-Christian Council Meets in Salzburg

ORF (Austrian Public Broadcasting), June 19, 2024

German original: https://religion.orf.at/stories/3225514/

The annual conference of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) is taking place in Salzburg this year from Sunday. The council is the umbrella organization of all Jewish-Christian societies.

The conference, which is being organized jointly with the Coordinating Committee for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Austria and the University of Salzburg, is entitled "Holiness: A Religious Imperative and a Moral Obligation?" and will run until June 26.

The conference will open on June 23 with the presentation of the renowned Seelisberg Prize for outstanding services to Jewish-Christian dialogue. This year's prize goes to Edward Kessler, founder of the Woolf Institute in England, which specializes in interreligious dialogue.

Theologian: "Take up every interreligious thread of conversation

Theologian Gregor Maria Hoff, who is involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue, told Kathpress that the conference is particularly timely: "The fact that the ICCJ conference is taking place in Salzburg is a special opportunity for us to strengthen the Jewish-Christian dialogue in a way that will also have a public impact.

Particularly in times of increasing antisemitism and especially against the backdrop of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the task of picking up every interreligious thread of conversation arises. That is why Muslim participation is also planned for each panel of the conference."

Muslims also involved

The speakers include the Viennese pastoral theologian Regina Polak, the Linz-based fundamental theologian Isabella Guanzini, the Innsbruck-based Islamic religious education teacher Zekirija Sejdini, the Salzburg-based religious scholar Martin Rötting, the Bamberg-based Judaist Susanne Talabardon, the General Secretary of Religions for Peace, Azza Karam, and the Romanian Orthodox theologian and former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Ioan Sauca.

The invitation to the conference states that there are both overlaps and differences between the three major monotheistic religions in the concept of holiness. Thus, religious practices that are qualified as "holy" can "connect us in dialogue" and represent a "valuable resource of strength" – but they can also be abused politically.

"Right" and "wrong" concepts of holiness

"We know that extremist ideas of holiness can lead to violence, inter-communal conflicts, political intransigence and instability." The conference will therefore also address the question of how this danger can be adequately countered and how a distinction can be made between a "correct" and a "wrong" concept of holiness, according to the organizers.

In addition to the expert discourse, interreligious networks are to be established or strengthened and the Christian-Jewish dialogue is to be further deepened on a personal level through a combination of lectures, plenary discussions, workshops and a cultural program (such as a trip to the nearby European Capital of Culture, Bad Ischl), according to Hoff.

Award of the Seelisberg Prize

The Seelisberg Prize for outstanding services to Jewish-Christian dialogue will also be awarded for the third time during the conference on the opening evening (June 23). This year's winner is Edward Kessler, founder of the Woolf Institute in England, which specializes in interreligious dialogue, as the ICCJ announced on its website.

Kessler is not only the founder and president of the Cambridge-based institute, but also "a leading thinker in the field of interreligious relations, primarily in the field of Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations," the ICCJ said in a statement. Kessler is also socially and politically active – in 2022, for example, he founded an independent commission for the integration of refugees in the UK.

Seelisberg Prize awarded for the third time

He has written twelve books focusing on Jewish-Christian dialogue and published two explanatory podcasts on faith and the Holy Land ("An A-Z of Believing" and "An A-Z of the Holy Land").

The prize is awarded in cooperation with the ICCJ and the Center for Intercultural Theology and the Study of Religions at the University of Salzburg, with its project on Jewish-Christian dialogue under the direction of Hoff. In 2023, Joseph Sievers, an expert in Jewish history and a theologian teaching at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, was honored with the award.

red, religion.ORF.at/KAP