On the occasion of its 40th anniversary in December 2020, the Jewish Welcome Service launched a plethora of extraordinary initiatives. Among others, it launched the campaign “Vienna Trips”. It invites descendants of Holocaust survivors aged between 18 and 35 to Vienna – both to get to know the home of their ancestors and to search for traces of them. Read more

In 2016, Jackie Sallon from London was in Vienna with her siblings at the invitation of the Jewish Welcome Service – on the search for traces of her grandparents, who were murdered in the Shoah. This research resulted in it being possible to lay stones of remembrance in May. Read more

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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