In November, W24 and ORFIII broadcast a documentary film on the 40-year history of the Jewish Welcome Service. The 45-minute film in German explains the work and significance of the institution founded by Leon Zelman and the city of Vienna with recent and historic recordings, interviews and background information. An English version is planned.
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On November 10, the exhibition “Without a Home” was opened at Vienna’s Museum Judenplatz. The show describes the situation of the so-called “Kindertransport children”, who once fled Vienna to escape the Nazis. The Jewish Welcome Service and the Jewish Museum invited “children” and their descendants to Vienna for the opening.
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In the middle of October, stones of remembrance were placed at Zirkusgasse 23 in Vienna’s 2nd district – for the librarian Julius Mehrer and his family. At the invitation of the Jewish Welcome Service, descendants of the family from Israel were present at the act of remembrance.
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There was huge interest in the Vienna Trips, on which the Jewish Welcome Service invited young descendants of Shoah survivors this summer. Demand has been so great that registration is not currently possible. The first guests visited Vienna in October. The offer is also supported by the Vienna Tourist Board.
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The Shoah Wall of Names Memorial was ceremoniously opened in Vienna’s Ostarrichi Park on November 9, after many years of planning. The project was initiated by Kurt Yakov Tutter and the association that he founded for this purpose.
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In the middle of September, Vienna’s City Councilor for Cultural Affairs, Veronica Kaup-Hasler, presented the Leon Zelman Prize for Dialogue and Understanding at Vienna City Hall for the ninth time. To mark 40 years of the JWS, two prizes were awarded this time round: To the dialog project “Likrat” for young people and to the “Republican Club”. The documentation of the prize-giving is now available on YouTube, as are clips of interviews with earlier prizewinners.
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