As ever, there is still huge interest in the Vienna Trips, on which the Jewish Welcome Service has regularly invited young descendants of Shoah survivors since summer 2021. At the moment, however, demand is so great that registration is not currently possible. The offer is supported by the Vienna Tourist Board.
Most recently, Eli and Chaya Schick paid a visit to Vienna as part of the Vienna Trips – to search for traces of their family. Eli’s grandfather, Samuel Schick, was born in 1927 in Vienna and was able to flee the Nazis with the “Kindertransport” rescue mission. In the Schick family, an anecdote told by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer is passed down, according to which Eli’s great-grandfather managed to escape a Nazi raid thanks to an unusual warning and presumably survived as a result. Eli’s father visited Vienna several years ago at the invitation of the Jewish Welcome Service.
Retracing the history of ancestors
The Vienna Trips were initiated in 2021 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Jewish Welcome Service. As part of these trips, the JWS 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.
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.
