• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Jewish Welcome Service Vienna

Sponsored by the City of Vienna

  • English
  • Deutsch
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Imprint
  • About us
    • Members of the Board
    • Patrons & Sponsors
    • Retrospective 1980-1993
    • Retrospective 1994-2012
    • Retrospective 2013-2016
    • Retrospective 2017-2019
    • Retrospective 2020
  • News
    • Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter
    • Newsletter archive
  • Services
    • Downloads
    • Links
  • Press
  • Invitation Programme
  • Leon Zelman Prize
    • Leon Zelman OBM
  • Public Projects

2022 Leon Zelman Prize goes to Michaela Raggam-Blesch

15. December 2022

The prestigious Leon Zelman Prize for Dialogue and Understanding is awarded every fall. This year, the award went to historian Michaela Raggam-Blesch, who received the prize at a ceremony in mid-September at Vienna City Hall. The award was presented by Peter Florianschütz, Member of the Provincial Parliament and City Councilor, representing the Mayor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig.

Member of the Provincial Parliament and City Councilor Peter Florianschütz presents the 2022 Zelman Prize to historian Michaela Raggam-Blesch. Photo: PID/Schaub-Walzer

Michaela Raggam-Blesch is considered to be the “most renowned Holocaust researcher of her generation”, as historian Heidemarie Uhl noted in her laudatory speech. The jury’s statement on the award added: “Through her many years of extensive research and mediation work, the award winner … makes a significant contribution to raising public awareness of the Shoah and its consequences for the Jewish population. In her publications as well as in her curatorial activities for exhibitions, Raggam-Blesch makes it clear that “disenfranchisement, deprivation, expulsion, and persecution of Viennese Jews took place in the heart of the city, right under the eyes of the Viennese population.”

“My work,” said Raggam-Blesch in her acceptance speech, “is always about making the people behind the numbers visible and reconstructing the stories of those who until now had only appeared as names on a deportation list. … In the course of my work, I have had the privilege of meeting many more contemporary witnesses in person and also of becoming friends with several of them.”

Caroline Shklarek-Zelman, daughter of Leon Zelman, Maya Karmely Sommer, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Israeli Embassy representing Ambassador Mordechai Rodgold, Claudia Prutscher, Vice-President of the Jewish Community, Anita Dumfahrt, Secretary General of the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria, as well as numerous academic colleagues of the award winner participated in the ceremony.

Source: APA OTS

Peter Florianschütz, representing the Mayor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig, honors the achievements of the prize winner.
Historian Heidemarie Uhl during her laudatory speech
Jewish Welcome Service General Secretary Susanne Trauneck (left) with City Councilor Florianschütz and Raggam-Blesch
In her speech, Susanne Trauneck commemorated Leon Zelman, in whose memory the prize has been awarded since 2013.
“My work,” said Raggam-Blesch in her acceptance speech, “is always about making the people behind the numbers visible.”

Photos: PID/Schaub-Walzer

  • Photos of the prize-giving (Facebook)
  • Short portrait of the award winner (YouTube)
  • Laudatory speech by Heidemarie Uhl to download (in German)
  • More information

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Ralph and Diane Dressler experience family history on a trip to Vienna
  • Vienna, city of dreams
  • Interview Lore SEGAL
  • With Conflicting Emotions_EJewishPhilantrophy
  • Jewish News from Austria

Follow us

Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube

Footer

Quicklinks

  • Order our Newsletter
  • News
  • Invitation Programme
  • Leon Zelman Prize
  • Patrons & Sponsors
  • Members of the Board

Supporters

wienholding - a company of the City of Vienna Wien

All Patrons & Sponsors

Contact

Judenplatz 8 / 8
A-1010 Vienna

Tel. +43 1 535 04 31-1590
E-Mail: office@jewish-welcome.at

Privacy Policy
Accessibility

© 2023 · Jewish Welcome Service Vienna