AJR Group takes an intensive look at Jewish Vienna

Alongside visits to places of commemoration such as the Aspang Memorial, the Shoah Wall of Names Memorial, the “Keys Against Forgetting” in the Serviten Quarter and the “Roßau Cemetery”, Vienna’s oldest Jewish cemetery, the AJR members also got the chance to meet numerous experts: National Fund director Hannah Lessing, Moritz Wein, head of the field of “Holocaust Education” at the Ministry of Education, Patrick Siegele, head of the educational program www.erinnern.at as well as Zelman award winner Hannah Landsmann from the Jewish Museum brought the guests up to date on a broad range of topics from remembrance and mediation work to issues of restitution.

In addition, the program also included visits to the Kindertransport memorial at the Westbahnhof railway station, the Simon Wiesenthal Institute, the synagogue, the Wien Museum, a stroll through Vienna’s Jewish districts, a sightseeing tour, and a reception at the British Embassy.

The Holocaust in family memory

A highlight of the itinerary was a trip to see the exhibition “The Third Generation. The Holocaust in Family Memory” at the Jewish Museum. Here, the guests of the AJR were confronted with new perspectives of their own personal history. Using artworks by the 3rd generation, the exhibition addresses the issue of how the history and trauma of the victims and survivors of the Shoa were passed on to their children and grandchildren.

Incidentally, the tallit of Isak Jakob Rosen is also displayed in the exhibition. Rosen was murdered at the Buchenwald concentration camp. His grandchildren Ann and Jonathan both married under this tallit – and both traveled to Vienna in September to attend the launch of the exhibition at the invitation of the JWS.

Exhibition “The Third Generation. The Holocaust in Family Memory” at the Jewish Museum Vienna (still on until March 16, 2025)

Report by the daily newspaper “Der Standard” on the AJR group’s visit (in German)