The “Vienna Trips” program has enjoyed continued popularity for three years now. On these trips, the Jewish Welcome Service invites descendants of Holocaust survivors aged between 18 and 35 to explore Vienna as they track down their ancestors. In August and September, several young adults visited the city once more.
In September, Chaya Schick from Israel visited Vienna together with her husband Elyashiv. Her brother Eli had already visited the city in summer 2023 with the “Vienna Trips”. Their grandfather, Samuel Schick, was born in 1927 in Vienna and was able to flee the Nazis with a “Kindertransport” rescue mission. August saw the visit of Jason Costi from the US to Vienna, accompanied by his wife and two children. He explored the city in search of traces of his grandmother Miriam Wolf, who as a young girl was able to flee from the Nazis in Vienna to the US. “My grandmother”, he recounts, “and her parents (her father owned a shoe shop) fled from Austria with nothing more than what they could carry, because they were persecuted for being Jews.”
The Vienna Trips were initiated in 2021 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Jewish Welcome Service. Packages for two people are awarded that cover not only the flight but also a seven-day stay. In addition, support is provided for family history research as well as a wealth of tips for organizing the stay in Vienna. The idea is to then document each stay in a kind of “Vienna diary” – in particular with photos and videos for social media channels like Instagram and Facebook.
The offer, for which registrations are currently not being accepted due to the huge demand, is supported by the Vienna Tourist Board.
