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The Burgenland Research Society has been maintained interviews with contemporary witnesses on Burgenland contemporary history since 2001. The focus of this research is on Jewish families expelled from Burgenland. The biographical interviews formed the base material for the publication “Vertrieben. Erinnerungen burgenländischer Juden und Jüdinnen.” (Expelled. Recollections of Jews from Burgenland) published in 2004 by Mandelbaum.

With the Oral History Archives a pool of video and image material is now available online for research, for school projects as well as for descendants and friends of the interviewees.

A total of 38 unedited interviews will be available online from April 2022. In addition to the video material, transcriptions of the interviews and photos from the possession of the interviewees, partly published in the publication “Vertrieben. Erinnerungen burgenländischer Juden und Jüdinnen.”, are available online in the Oral History Archives of the BFG. All interviews were conducted as biographical interviews. In the first part of the interview, the interviewees were free to tell their life story, starting with the earliest childhood memories up to the present day. In the second part of the interview, individual topics were deeply asked in relation to the first part of the narrative. The topics focus on school and childhood, experiences of anti-Semitism in the interwar period, the weeks around March 1938, the expulsion and flight, the organization of the escape to safe countries, careers in the countries of new home, as well as the relationships and opinions towards Austria.

All interviews were conducted as biographical interviews. In the first part of the interview, the interviewees were free to tell their life story, starting with the earliest childhood memories up to the present day. In the second part of the interview, individual topics were deeply asked in relation to the first part of the narrative. The topics focus on school and childhood, experiences of anti-Semitism in the interwar period, the weeks around March 1938, the expulsion and flight, the organization of the escape to safe countries, careers in the countries of new home, as well as the relationships and opinions towards Austria.

In the menu “Select”, you have the option of researching for place of origin, gender and country of refuge. In the menu “Map”, the places of origin of the interviewees are displayed on a map and can be faded in and out by using the button by district in order to link to the interviews.

The published material is available free of charge for research, for school projects and for interested public. The use of the interviews or parts for commercial and non-commercial productions, as well as embedding in websites and social media sites, the copyrights must be obtained from the Burgenland Research Society.

Contact:
office@forschungsgesellschaft.at
+43 (0)2682 66 88 612
Domplatz 21 | A 7000 Eisenstadt