Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 2RH THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE October 3, 1986 Vienna: glorious post, uncertain future ..I ground. The arsonists H»> by Sheldon Kirshner JTA The ghosts of the Jewish past haunt Vienna, a stately city now nearly bereft of Jews. There was a time, not that long ago, when Vienna was one of the most impor tant capitals in the diaspora. Before the onslaught of Nazism, Vienna was a place where the flower of Jewish creativity in every conceiv able field of human endeavor bloomed. Today, more than 40 years after the Nazis carried out their last deportation of Jews from Vienna, there are relatively few signs re minding a visitor of what used to be. The glory that was pre-war Jewish Vienna is kept alive in old buildings, plaques, street markers and in the minds of people with long memories. By the early 1930s, when the threat of German National Social ism seemed imminently real to some and far off to others, Jews com prised about eight percent of Vien na’s population. Despite being a minority, Jews played a dominant role in practi cally all aspects of life in Vienna. It is probably fair to say that the influence they exercised here was far more pervasive than Jews exer cise in the U.S. today. Jews were granted full civic equality in 1848, but it was not until 1867 that Jewish emancipa tion was made permanent by law. Now able to let their energy, talent and imagination run free, Jews took advantage of the relatively liberal political and social climate in Austria and, in unprecedented numbers, entered professions like law and medicine. Hans Kelsen, a professor of con stitutional law at the University of Vienna, wrote Austria’s Post-1918 constitution, the tenets of which were incorporated into its present- day constitution. Robert Barany won the Nobel Prize in physiology, and another Nobel Prize laureate, Karl Land- steiner, discovered the four main human blood types. Sigmund Freud opened up new horizons in psychia try. They were prominent in every facet of the economic system. They published newspapers; they ran banks; they owned factories. Arguably, they made their grea test mark in the arts. There were writers like Arthur Schnitzler, Franz Werfel and Stefan Zweig. There were stage directors and actors like Max Reinhardt and Elizabeth Bergner. And there were musicians like Arnold Schoenberg, Gustav Mahler, Carl Goldmark, Artur Schnabel and Bruno Walter. Vienna was a center of modern Zionism. Theodor Herzl, the author of “The Jewish State," lived and worked in Vienna. As a corres pondent in Paris for the Neue Freie Presse, he was converted to Zion ism by the notorious Dreyfus Affair. Peretz Smolenskin, one of the founders of the Zionist reawaken ing, resided in Vienna. And Nathan Birnbaum founded the first Jewish nationalist student association, Kadimah, here. At the height of the Jewish renaissance, Vienna was home to approximately 170,000 Jews. The less successful ones lived in the first district, now a prime shopping area, and the better-off ones were concentrated in the ninth district, The Moorish style or “Turkish” synagogue in Vienna, designed by Hugo van Wiedenfeld and built in 1885-87. Etching by S. Wolf. Jerusa lem; Sir Isaac and Lady Wolfson Museum in Hechai Shlomo. Platz, once a choice address for the site of the venerable University of Vienna . The 1938 Anschluss, the annex ation of Austria into Germany, spelled finis to the Jewish com munity. Nazi Germany, having dev astated German Jewry, proceeded to humiliateand disenfranchise the Jews of Austria. Jews lost their livelihood, their synagogues were burned on Crys tal Night, and they were forced out of the country. Many emigrated, but 65,000 would not or could not leave, and by 1945 they had been killed. Today, 41 years after the down fall of the Third Reich, Vienna is like a Jewish mausoleum. In Juden r Congregation Beth Shalom A Conservative Synagogue Serving North Atlanta As we grow together from strength to strength May the New Year be filled with Good health, good friends and joy for all. Leonard H. Lifshen Rabbi Marcia Bergman President Alan Gorlin Educational Director Harriet Meltzer-ExecuOue Director wealthier Jewish families, there are non-sectarian restaurants and shops, as well as masses of parked cars. The Judengasse, formerly the center of Jewish commercial activ ity, is just like any other street in contemporary Vienna: the Jewish names are gone. In a little park near the Juden gasse, a plaque commemorates the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. This is where the luxurious Hotel Metropol, the headquarters of the Gestapo, stood. During the war, allied bombers destroyed it. Up the street is the magnificent Seitenstettengasse Synagogue. An impressive structure with a starry blue dome, it was built in 1826, concealed behind an apartment house on a narrow, cobblestoned street. The Nazis, in their maniacal effort to eradicate all traces of Jew ish culture, tried to burn it to the ground. The arsonists damaged the interior considerably, only dousing the fire because they feared it would spread to the rest of the neighborhood. In 1963, the synagogue—the site of a 1981 Palestinian terrorist attack resulting in three deaths - was renovated. The area around it has become a fashionable, some what Bohemian nightspot. There is a kosher restaurant, the Arche Noah, but it has fallen on hard times because few Jewish tourists are visiting Vienna in the wake of the Kurt Waldheim affair. And there is an Israeli restaurant, Mapitome, a non-kosher facility which attracts a young, beautiful clientele. Compared to Vienna’s other synagogue’s, the Seitenstettengasse Synagogue suffered a rather mild fate. The so-called Polish synagogue, constructed in a Moorish-Byzantine style, was firebombed. A feature less housing estate stands on its site. There is a vacant lot on Grosse Schiffgasse, and a glimpse through the fence reveals rotting car chas sis, fruit trees growing wild and a rusting crane. This is where the Schiffschule, the synagogue of Vienna’s Hungarian Jews, stood. The Turkischer Tempel, where Vienna’s Sepharic Jews worshipped, is now nothing more than a weed- choked lot behind a wall of bill boards. The Grosser Tempel, de signed by one of Vienna’s foremost architects, Ludwig Frankl, is oc cupied by a car park. Sigmund Freud’s house, on 19 Berggasse, has not met such a sor rowful fate. Now a museum, in the ninth district, it chronicles his life and career through the medium of photographs, letters and documents. Freud, who emigrated from Vienna to London a year before he died, lived in this apartment building from 1891 until 1938. J May the New Year bring peace and prosperity to the Jewish Community | worldwide. L’SHANA TOVA ISRAEL BONDS —ATLANTA ASHER I. BENATOR General Chairman DR. MARVIN C. GOLDSTEIN Georgia State Chairman Campaign Cabinet Sherwin Glass Robert Rinzler Miriam Strickland Levitas Richard Orenstein Rubin and Caroline Piha Kenneth Levy Edward M. Koffsky Executive Director 2250 \ Druid H Robert Rosner Sylvan Makovet Rabbi S. Robert Ichay Richard G. Halpern Helen Cavalier Charles D. Lowenstein Herbert K. Wollner Assistant Director IL Road. Suite 230. Atlanta, GA (404) 634-9500