A group of young professionals from the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre Toronto visited Vienna once again this year from June 17 to 24 at the invitation of the Jewish Welcome Service. In cooperation with the Austrian Service Abroad, the JWS prepared a varied program in which visitors learned about the Holocaust and current Jewish life in the city.
Among the numerous interlocutors of the group of young descendants of Shoah survivors aged between 22 and 34 were Hannah M. Lessing, Secretary General of the National Fund for Victims of National Socialism, Danielle Spera, Director of the Jewish Museum Vienna, Edward Serrotta, Director of the Centropa Institute, which documents the stories of Jewish families in Central and Eastern Europe from the 20th century, Pia Schölnberger, who is responsible, among other things, for provenance research at the Federal Chancellery, as well as Miriam Tenner from “Shalom Alaikum – Jewish Aid for Refugees”.
A culinary get-together was hosted at Café Korb with Nino Weiss of the project “Schibboleth – Jewish Viennese Food”, who expounded on the deep connection between Viennese cuisine and Jewish delicacies. A stimulating exchange took place with former Austrian “Gedenkdiener” (memorial servants) as well as with pupils of the Zwi Perez Chajes School, with whom the group had the opportunity to chat on the IKG Campus about current Jewish life in Vienna.
Remembrance at Mauthausen and Hartheim
Also on the thoroughly extensive program of events: a visit to the former Mauthausen concentration camp and the Hartheim Castle Memorial (Upper Austria). Further items on the program included visits to the Museum Judenplatz, the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies – VWI, the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, the Aspang Railway Station, from which the majority of Viennese Jews were deported, the Maimonides Center, the Home for Jewish Senior Citizens, the exil.arte Center for forbidden music, the exhibition “Für das Kind” (For the Child) in remembrance of the Kindertransports to save Jewish children, the House of History, the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) as well as to the Vienna Stadttempel (City Temple).
