A group of young professionals from the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto visited Vienna from June 4 to 11. In cooperation with the Austrian Foreign Service, the Jewish Welcome Service prepared a varied program in which visitors learned about the Holocaust and current Jewish life in the city.
A highlight of the visit program was without doubt the group’s meeting with Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen at the IKG Street Festival. Among the group’s numerous other interlocutors were Hannah M. Lessing, Secretary General of the National Fund for Victims of National Socialism, representatives of the Jewish Student Union and Edward Serrotta, Director of the Centropa Institute, which documents the stories of Jewish families in Central and Eastern Europe from the 20th century. Also on the program: a visit to the former Mauthausen concentration camp and the Hartheim Castle Memorial (Upper Austria).
On the IKG Campus, students of the Zwi Perez Chajes School had the opportunity to talk about current Jewish life in Vienna. Other program items included visits to the Jewish Museum Vienna, the Simon Wiesenthal Institute, the memorial installation of the House of History on Heldenplatz and the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW), a visit to the Jewish Cemetery at Währing and a walking tour through the Jewish history of the 2nd district. The Shabbat celebration in the Vienna city temple followed by a Shabbat meal rounded off the stay.
With its museum and study programs, the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre conveys knowledge about and connections around the Holocaust and serves as a forum for dialog on topics of civil society. With its program, the center reaches around 20,000 pupils and students every year.
- Anna Gasteiger: “I feel very vulnerable” – News 23/2018 (in German)
- Facebook page of the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre
