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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE
An Online Resource Centre
AUSTRIA 3
Baden
Burgenland
Eisenstadt
Graz
Hainburg
Hohenems
Innsbruck
Klagenfurt
Kobersdorf
Linz
Mauthausen_Gusen
Oberwart
Salzburg
St. Pölten
Stadtschlaining
Although there were Jewish communities scattered throughout Austria, especially in the major urban centres, none was as important as that of Vienna. Important surviving sites include Hohenems, with its well-preserved Jewish quarter; Burgenland, throughout which Jewish settlement was encouraged from the 17th century; and the important collection of memorials at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex.
Baden is a mediaeval spa town in Lower Austria, just 26 kilometres south of Vienna. The Baden Jewish community survived from the 1860s to 1938; in its heyday it was an integral part of the town. Emil Jellinek (1853-1918), for example was a wealthy businessman who sat on the board of Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (‘DMG’) and in doing so made his daughter’s name, Mercedes, world famous. Theodor Herzl, inventor of political Zionism, began writing his book, The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat) during a holiday here in 1894. There is still a Jewish cemetery in Baden, but its Ohel has been destroyed.
Baden synagogue was built in 1870 and enlarged in 1873. Additional community buildings were added over the years, turning it into a Jewish centre.
Heavily damaged on Kristallnacht, this large and historic building has survived, though it remains in urgent need of support. It had a three-bay arcade of cast-iron columns which – in the side aisles and along the entrance wall – supported the women’s gallery. In 1940, when the municipality of Baden occupied the complex, this was extended to form an entire upper floor.
Following the Second World War the buildings were taken over by the Soviet occupation forces and used as warehouses. The municipal authorities later gave them to the Jewish Community of Vienna, but no work took place on the building until the 1960s, when one part of the complex, previously a conference hall and religious school, was transformed into a prayer room. After years in which lack of funds made maintenance impossible, the synagogue was to be demolished in 1988, but activists lobbied to save it. The prayer-room was renovated in 1989 and again in 1999, but retains some of its original features.
It is an almost square space, arranged in a nine-bay plan. Four central cast-iron columns support the ceiling, creating a pattern of beams in which the outer bays are decorated with stars on a blue field, while the central section is painted white. This may originally have been a glazed skylight.
Plans remain in hand for a full renovation of the entire structure. Designs can be viewed on-line at the Baden Jewish community website. The restoration will maintain the blocky palazzo-style exterior, typical of many synagogues of the late 19th century, in which the two levels of the original building are clearly indicated by the rows of large arched windows. The interior will also be restored and the central bimah rebuilt.
Jewish Community of Baden:
Address
Telephone
Website
The Austrian state of Burgenland is a border area between Austria and Hungary, contested for centuries by the two powers. Jewish settlement here was extensive, dating back to the Middle Ages and especially encouraged in the latter part of the 17th century. The most famous of the Jewish settlements in the area are the ‘Seven Holy Communities’ (Hebrew: Sheva Kehilot Kedoshot) which were under the protection of the Esterhazy [Estrházy] family: Deutschkrertz, Eisenstadt – their main seat, where the Jewish history and remains are especially significant – Kittsee, Frauenkirchen, Lackenbach, Mattersburg and Kobersdorf. There are also remnants of mediaeval synagogues at Hainburg and Korneuburg, and at least thirteen Jewish cemeteries and a few memorial plaques visible in this region. After the Anschluss, the Burgenland Jews were the first in Austria to be expelled from their homes and deported.
The bishop of Eisenstadt allowed Jews to trade and settle in Eisenstadt, Burgenland in 1378. Soon this city, about 60 kilometres south of Vienna, was the only place in eastern Austria with a fully functioning Jewish community. In 1626 Count Nicholas Esterhazy (1582–1645) invited Jews to settle in Eisenstadt as Schutzjuden (protected Jews who had paid for a residence permit) living in a ghetto within the boundaries of his palace. In 1671, Emperor Leopold I (1656–1705) brought an end to this first ghetto by expelling the Eisenstadt Jews, but soon after, Paul Esterhazy (1635–1713) helped the community to resettle in another section of the town, creating a new ghetto on his private lands at Unterberg. This became known as Unterberg Eisenstadt and ‘Little Jerusalem’. In 1690 the community was granted autonomy in return for taxes and annual gifts; the buildings of the ghetto were badly damaged in a fire of 1795, but the community continued to thrive.
At its largest, in 1840, the community had 876 members. Prior to their deportation in 1938, 466 Jews lived in the city and 534 in the surrounding rural areas. Between April and July of 1938 all Jews were removed, and Jewish property ‘Aryanised,’ by the Nazi regime. Only a few survivors returned after the Holocaust.
This well-preserved ghetto is entered through a yellow archway. The yellow, rose, blue and cream buildings, most dating from the 17th century, still appear much as they did when the community which created them was deported in 1938.
The Austrian Jewish museum, dedicated to Jewish life in the province of Burgenland, opened in 1982 in the former mansion of Samson Wertheimer (1659-1724). Wertheimer had a prominent role at the Viennese court, where from 1694 to 1709 he worked for emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI as Hofoberfaktor or chief administrator of financial affairs. He also served the Esterhazy family in Burgenland and was Rabbi of Hungary and Moravia.
Wertheimer provided a synagogue, mikveh (ritual bath) and Jewish school to the ghetto during a period of rebuilding from 1675. Later, in 1696, Prince Paul Esterhazy rewarded Wertheimer with a mansion in recognition of his 20 years’ devoted services to the family’s financial affairs. Wertheimer refurbished the building and installed in it a private synagogue; it later passed into the hands of the Wolf family, which maintained a prosperous kosher wine business in the city. Today the mansion and synagogue are the site of the Austrian Jewish Museum.
The 250-year autonomy of the Eisenstadt community came to an end in 1938. On 9 November a mob destroyed the community’s main synagogue, but overlooked the historic Wertheimer Shul, by then hidden above the Wolf Company’s offices. The synagogue was re-consecrated for Jewish worship in 1979.
In its current form the synagogue dates almost entirely from 1832, having been refurbished after the Eisenstadt ghetto was badly damaged in a fire of 1795. Its design includes many elements typical of the period, including a high ceiling and a chandelier hanging from a painted rosette.
At the inauguration of the building in 1834, members of the community contributed ceremonial silver, a painted glass beaker for the Hevrah Kadisha (Burial Society), Torah scrolls, an elaborate Parohet (Ark curtain) and a parchment Megillah (Scroll of the Book of Esther) executed by the scribe Elie Gabriel, all of which are among the items displayed in the museum today.
There is also a memorial plaque to local Jews who died in the First World War; one of the names commemorated is Fritz Austerlitz, whose namesake and nephew was Fred Astaire.
Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
Website
There are two Jewish cemeteries, both located within the old Jewish quarter. The first was used from 1679 to 1875. An inventory of 1922 recorded 1140 gravestones. The second, consecrated in 1875, is at the corner of Wertheimergasse and Parkgasse. Fewer than 300 gravestones are visible, but there were certainly many more before 1938.
Jewish settlers are documented in Graz from as early as the 13th century, and since the 14th century the Jewish community had a Judengasse (Jewish street), a synagogue, a mikveh (ritual bath) and a cemetery. The community was destroyed during the Nazi era, but quickly re-established; a prayer room was opened as early as 1946. There are Jewish cemeteries in Graz-Wetzelsdorf and Leoben.
The Jewish community centre, on the site of an earlier synagogue, houses a prayer room (dedicated in 1991). The community represents the Jews of Styria, Carinthia and southern Burgenland.
Address
Grieskai 58
In 1988, a monument commemorating the victims of the pogrom of November 1938 was built on Synagogenplatz.
A small stone building of unusual design - it has an extension, perhaps for the Ark, topped by a small spirelet - has been identified as a former synagogue, not used since 1420. There is also a mikveh nearby, indicating that this area was the Jewish ritual centre of mediaeval Hainburg. In 2005 a 15th-century Jewish gravestone was also discovered in the town.
The Hohenems Jewish community played an important role in the local economy, as well as helping administer the region’s rural areas. Its relative prosperity is evident in the scale of the architecture of its Jewish quarter.
The Jewish quarter of Hohenems is one of the best preserved in central Europe; it is also the main historic area of the town as a whole. Originating in the 17th century, most of the buildings today are of late 18th and 19th-century appearance.
The quarter consisted of two main streets: the former Judengasse (Street of the Jews) and the former Christengasse (Street of the Christians). It included the synagogue, built in 1772. A Jewish school and a mikveh (ritual bath) are now lost, but the town has a Jewish cemetery, a Jewish museum (housed in a former villa) and several other such sites, such as the Jakob-Hannibal-Strasse Jewish almshouse and some more humble houses, once the property of Jewish artisans and peddlers.
Information on the history, architecture and former occupants of each house in the quarter is available in a
database.
This small, elegant synagogue, complete with a forecourt, was designed by Baroque master builder Peter Bein (1736-1818) in 1770, modified between 1863 and 1867 by Swiss architect Felix Wilhelm Kubly (1802-1872), and taken over by the Nazi regime in September 1940. The building was converted into a fire station in 1954/55 and partly reconstructed in 2003 by architects Ada and Reinhard Rinderer, before re-opening as the Tonart music school in 2004. The original form of the prayer room and its windows was recreated. The high windows with oculi and the former womens’ gallery were also partly reproduced.
It remains an early and important example of a late Baroque rural synagogue, particularly significant for its curved ceiling. The main sanctuary is now named the Salomon Sulzer Auditorium, after the famous cantor and reformer of Jewish liturgical music (1804-1890) who was born in Hohenems and was a patron of the 19th-century remodelling. The hall is used for cultural activities and events, especially those that foster intercultural relations.
See the following links for history and photos
www.jm-hohenems.at/index.php?id=2040&lang=1
and for current use
www.salomonsulzersaal.at
Address
Schweizer Strasse 21
Located south of the city, this is still in use; the Verein zur erhaltung des Jüdischen friedhofs in Hohenems (Association for the Maintenance of the Jewish Cemetery in Hohenems) looks after it. Contact the Jewish museum for information.
For more information, including a register of graves, see:
www.jm-hohenems.at/index.php?id=2050&lang=1
The Hohenems Jewish museum is located in the former Heimann-Rosenthal villa, built in 1864. It core exhibition has recently been re-displayed; it was opened in 2007. The museum offers an extensive programme of events and exhibitions, as well as a library containing about 9,000 items. The museum is now developing a research archive of documents, photographs, and other archives illustrating Jewish life in the town, funded from donations by local Jews and their descendants.
Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
Website
Innsbruck’s Jewish community was formally founded in 1910, although Jewish graves of the 16th century have been found in the city. The community was never large or particularly affluent, but there were probably about 500 Jews in Innsbruck before the Second World War. The community was destroyed in 1938-9, and it was many years after the War that it was re-established.
For more on the community, see:
www.ikg-innsbruck.at/home_en.php?id=5000
Innsbruck’s synagogue sustained heavy damage in 1943 and was torn down in 1965. In 1981 a barely-visible memorial stone was placed on the then-vacant lot. A new community building for the Jews of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg regions, designed by architect Michael Prachensky (b.1944), was dedicated in 1993. It contains a small prayer room notable for its vaulted ceiling, which represents the night sky looking towards Jerusalem as it appeared on the night of the synagogue’s dedication (21 March 1993). Noteworthy are the Torah scrolls and ornaments, from turn-of-the-20th-century Prague. The parohet (Ark curtain) was given by the Jewish women of Innsbruck in 1899.
For more history and photos, see:
www.ikg-innsbruck.at/home_en.php?id=2000
Address
Sillgasse 15
The Jewish section, on the southern rim of the municipal Western cemetery, attests to the diversity of Innsbruck’s Jewish population. Burials here go back to 1864. Along the northern wall lie the graves of Jewish soldiers from all parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who died in the Tyrol during the First World War. In 1925 a memorial was erected here, dedicated to six Innsbruck Jews who died in that war. A plaque on the east wall commemorates victims of the Holocaust. Gravestones of interest include that of Max Stern, with a neo-classical female figure and a column of white marble, and that of Otto Grünmandl, which bears a relief in the Austro-Hungarian art-nouveau style known as Jugendstil.
The cemetery also contains remains relocated from the Old Jewish cemetery, known as Judenbühel from its location on the southwest slope of Jew’s Hill.
For more information, see:
www.ikg-innsbruck.at/home_en.php?id=4000
Email
This well-preserved Jewish cemetery is located in the St Ruprecht area.
Address
Sonnwendgasse
A-9020 Klagenfurt
Built on the grounds of the former synagogue, this memorial serves as a reminder of Nazi destruction.
Address
Platzgasse 3
Kabold (Hungarian)
Kobersdorf is a market town in Oberpullendorf, Burgenland, one of this state’s seven ‘holy Jewish communities’. The community was founded in 1526-7 by Jews expelled from Ödenburg. Kobersdorf later became a spa town, the mineral waters of which were popular with Jewish holidaymakers. In 1938 the Jews of the town were deported, mostly to their deaths.
The synagogue is opposite the town’s palace. It was built in around 1860, and closed after serious vandalism in 1938. In 1994 the neglected building was purchased by the Verein zur Erhaltung und kulturellen nutzung der synagoge Kobersdorf (Association for the Preservation and Cultural Use of the Kobersdorf Synagogue). Restoration began in 2002, and since then the former synagogue, with its rural Baroque detailing, has been used for commemorative events.
For more information and photos, see:
www.david.juden.at/kulturzeitschrift/70-75/71-magnus.htm and
www.sagen.at/fotos/showphoto.php/photo/4810/cat/640
Contact
Address
Naama Magnus and Roman Neumeyer
Verein zur erhaltung und kulturellen nutzung der synagoge Kobersdorf
Haupstrasse 38
A-7332 Kobersdorf
The cemetery contains several hundred tombstones. It is well maintained. For photos, see:
www.forschungsgesellschaft.at/emigration/orte/kobersdorf_e.htm
Location
After Hauptplatz turn left on Waldgasse
The first Jewish families settled in Linz as early as the latter half of the 13th century, but – as in Vienna – the community was destroyed in 1420-1. Subsequently, Jews were able to trade in Linz on market days, but permanent settlement was very difficult. After 1822 trade contacts became more lively, but restrictions on settlement remained. Nevertheless there was a prayer room by 1824, and the Jewish community was formally established in 1870.
This is one of the most carefully designed Jewish places of worship in postwar Europe. The building, designed by Fritz Goffitzer (b. 1927), has a simple modular pavilion-like form, recalling the modernist aesthetic of the interwar years, but using exposed concrete for framing and detailing in a more up-to-date manner. It features murals of the Twelve Tribes of Israel by Fritz Frölich (b. 1910). The Jewish community centre is nearby.
The synagogue stands on the site of its predecessor, built in 1877 and destroyed in 1938. The Jewish community later repossessed the site, and from 1947 to 1954 the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre was based here, headed by Simon Wiesenthal.
For photos, and a statement by the architect, see:
www.ph-linz.at/LuF/be/synagoge/
Address
Telephone
Bethlehemstrasse 26
A-4020 Linz
+43 732 77 98 05
The Jewish section has tombstones dating back to the 18th century.
Address
Friedhofstrasse 1
A-4020 Linz
Between 1938 and 1945, the German concentration camp known as KZ Mauthausen stood to the west of the village of that name. From here, forced labour was sent to work the granite quarries of the nearby Wienergraben valley, in working conditions from which few survived. A great many of the inmates of the complex were political prisoners, prisoners of war and criminals; Jews – especially after 1944 – Gypsies, homosexuals and others were victims of the Final Solution here from 1941. A major subsidiary camp was soon developed at Gusen, six kilometres west of the village of Mauthausen; the camps here, known as Gusen I, II and III between them held more prisoners (and claimed more victims) than the original Mauthausen camp. At various points prisoners from Mauthausen and Gusen were also sent to work at more than 50 sub-camps; these were usually construction sites, factories or farms. From 1944, at the Bergkristall-Esche II underground plant a network of bomb-proof tunnels was added to the site, protecting its factories and also including underground plants where Messerschmitt fighter planes were built. Conditions here were brutal.
Mauthausen and Gusen were liberated by American forces in May 1945. By that time, it is estimated that about 37,000 people had been murdered at Mauthausen-Gusen.
Since 1949, these former concentration camps and associated sites have become memorial sites of increasing importance. A memorial was erected at Gusen soon after the war, and the crematorium there saved from destruction in the 1960s. Commemorative structures were also created at Mauthausen from an early period, eventually resulting in a collection of more than twenty monuments, most of them to non-Jews, but forming a veritable history of Holocaust memorialisation. The Mauthausen Museum was opened in 1975, and has recently been greatly enlarged; the Gusen Visitors’ Centre in 2004. The complex has been inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
Nevertheless the recognition, protection, preservation and presentation of this extensive area, which covers much of the ground between Mauthausen and Sankt Georgen, has been erratic and incomplete. Many Holocaust-related sites have been built over. Parts of some camps are still visible, but others have yet to be commemorated. Most visitors only visit the Mauthausen memorial and the two museums, though there are is more to see in the surrounding area.
For further information on all aspects of the site, see:
www.gusen.org/
http://en.gusen-memorial.at/
http://en.mauthausen-memorial.at/
Soon after the war, survivors erected an informal memorial around the crematorium at Gusen I. In the early 1960s, when plans were announced to tear down the crematorium furnace, there were international protests. The structures were saved and international camp survivor groups joined to form the ‘Comité du Souvenir du Camp de Gusen’ with the aim of financing the construction of a more permanent memorial.
The prominent Milanese modernist architect Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso (1909-2004), a survivor of Gusen, designed the memorial with his pre-war partners Enrico Peressutti (1908-1976) and Ernesto N. Rogers (1909-1969). It was dedicated on 8 May 1965. Construction was supervised by the Austrian architect Wilhelm Schütte (1900-1968), who had previously planned the International Forum of Resistance Park at the Mauthausen memorial.
The simple form of this structure, and its innovative use of materials – especially concrete – make this an important monument in the history of Holocaust memorials. The memorial’s labyrinthine entrance alludes to the final route taken by the victims and the underground tunnels of Gusen II. The use of concrete also recalls the tunnel system, while the cuboid form of the monument echoes that of an enormous rock-crusher built at Gusen by prisoners between 1941 and 1943.
The KZ Gusen memorial and its site were given to the Republic of Austria in 1997 by the Comité. A publicly-funded renovation and extension of the structure was carried out between 2001 and 2004, resulting in the camp’s first visitors’ centre. This permanent exhibition provides an overview of the layout of the original St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen complex, with views of the archaeological remains of KZ Gusen I: foundations and floor of a former shower room, a street, and the foundations of the crematorium barracks, all excavated in 2003, during the construction of the visitors’ centre.
Much of the area of the sub-camps of Gusen I, II and III is now covered with housing.
Address
Langenstein
Georgestrasse 6
The massive perimeter walls of the concentration camp, which are now in the care of the Austrian state, in themselves embody a memorial to the events of the Holocaust, as do surviving structures and landscape features, such as some internal huts and buildings, various quarry sites and the Stairs of Death, along which prisoners were forced to climb carrying large blocks of granite.
The visitors’ centre has recently been extended, rebuilt and reopened. The structure, by architects MSP-H, is of concrete, deliberately plain and unadorned. A large number of pieces of granite, broken by the inmates, dominate the approach to the building. The museum includes an exhibition hall and a bookshop; there is also an archive and a library.
In addition, over the years more than twenty formal Holocaust monuments have been erected. The resulting collection of sculptures and monuments is collectively known as the International Forum of Resistance Park. These are complemented by several personal and family memorials, mostly attached to the perimeter walls of the camp. Many stand on the ridge between the camp and the nearest quarry site; others are located within the memorial itself.
For a list of the monuments, see:
http://en.mauthausenmemorial.at/index_open.php
For images of the monuments, see the Mauthausen entries at:
http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/sitemap/MR.htm
www.scrapbookpages.com/mauthausen/
http://faculty.berea.edu/gowlers/remembering/mauthausen/
http://andrejkoymasky.com/mem/holocaust/ho08.html
Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
The community here was established in 1929, and its Jewish cemetery is said to survive. After the Nazi deportation of 140 Jews in 1938, the community’s synagogue became a fire station - it has been restored and is in secular use. The building’s façade combines romanesque and classical features. The corners are marked by classical corner piers which extend the full height of the building, supporting a classically-inspired horizontal moulding and a gabled roof. Rows of small corbel arches articulate the edges of the gable, and run across the façade itself. The façade – in its current form – also has a relatively small arched main entrance flanked by two rectangular windows, with a round oculus window in the centre. See
photo.
Jews may have come to Salzburg with the Roman legions. The modern city was established in the 8th century; Bishop Arno (785-872) is known to have used a Jewish physician. There was a ‘Judenstrasse’ as early as the 12th century, but in 1492 the Jews of Salzburg were burned to death, and all survivors were expelled from the city. Jews re-settled in the city only after 1868, but the resulting community was never very large. Salzburg’s mediaeval Jewish quarter was around Judengasse, the continuation of pedestrianised Getreidegasse.
In 1885, Theodor Herzl spent a year in Salzburg as a legal clerk in the provincial court. Here, too, in the 1920s, the Jewish director Max Reinhardt (1873-1943), with the playwright Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, established the annual music festival immortalised by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein in The Sound of Music.
Judengasse 15, the site of the modern Hotel Altstadt, marks the location of a mediaeval synagogue mentioned in 1370. Salzburg’s current synagogue was built in 1893. Left in a ruined condition at the end of the Second World War, it has been restored and was re-consecrated in 1968. It has a classical façade seven bays wide. There are arched entrances in the second and sixth bays, and arched windows in the others. Classical pilasters divide each bay, and sets of double pilasters mark the corners. Outside is a monument commemorating the violence of Kristallnacht in 1938.
For a history (in German) and historic photos, see:
www.ikg-salzburg.at/
Address
Lasserstrasse 8
Salzburg Jewish cemetery opened in 1894. It was closed by the Nazis, but has been restored. Entrance is by permission of the Jewish community.
Address
Uferstrasse 47
Salzburg-Aigen
St. Pölten
Jews are first recorded at St. Polten in the 14th century. Violence against Jews was common until 1628, when the community was expelled from the city and not allowed back until the 19th century. By 1857, a community of 252 Jews had achieved official recognition, hired a teacher of religion, established a cemetery, and formally established itself as a religious community. Of about 650 Jews living in St. Polten before the Second World War, 214 were murdered by the Nazis.
Institute for the History of the Jews in Austria (modern title)
In 1911, planning began for a new synagogue, to be designed by Theodor Schreier. The resulting Art Nouveau building was dedicated on 17 August 1913, the eve of the Emperor’s birthday; the community affixed a plaque to the building in his honour. The synagogue was ruined during Kristallnacht in November 1939 and left to deteriorate until 1979. Restoration began that year; in 1984 the building was reopened as the Institute for the History of the Jews in Austria. A holocaust memorial bearing the names of the Jews of St. Polten murdered by the Nazis was placed on the front of the synagogue in 1992.
Opening hours
Address
Website
Monday - Friday, 09:00 - 16:00
Dr. Karl Renner-Promenade 22
(Corner of Schul Promenade and Lederergasse)
www.injoest.ac.at/
In the 17th century, Jewish presence here was substantial enough to support a synagogue. By 1848, Jews accounted for 40% of the population, making Stadtschlaining an important centre of Austrian Jewry. In 1929, the municipal council was moved to Oberwart and the Jewish community was incorporated there.
Friedensbibliothek/Peace Library
Renovated in 1989, the synagogue now houses the library of the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution. The interior of the synagogue is still relatively intact, although filled with bookcases. The richly painted multi-bay ceiling is particularly noteworthy. See
photo.
Address
Hauptplatz 3
A-7461 Stadtschlaining
The cemetery has been restored. The entrance is marked with a beautiful granite gate identifying it as a Jewish burial ground.
(Updated December 2008)
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