| Project |
Book,
website, CD-ROM with interviews Website
work in progress |
| Project carrier |
RESEARCH SOCIETY BURGENLAND Domplatz
21, A-7000 Eisenstadt
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| Project management |
Gert Tschögl |
| Contents |
Abridged
version |
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The project "Exiled. Recollections of Jews from Burgenland." documents the life stories of people who had to emigrate from the originally Jewish communities of Burgenland in 1938, in the form of historical interviews, for the first time giving a broad insight into the personal fate of these Burgenland families. In addition interviews will be carried out with the persecuted Jews from neighbouring Hungarian border towns. These people often had familiar or other relationships to Burgenland. The project therefore also fills a gap in the area of research into Jewism and Jewish culture in Burgenland and the bordering Hungarian regions. The interviews and photographs in private hands of the persons interviewed will be published in a book. Main themes of the interviews are: Memories
of Jewish life in Burgenland until 1938. In the spring of this year the project "Welcome to Stadtschlaining" was carried out in Stadtschlaining. On the initiative of "CONCENTRUM" (forum for political, ethical, cultural and social universals), the Austrian Research Centre for Peace and Conflict Solution (ÖSFK) and the Stadtschlaining City Council, Burgenland citizens from the area who had to flee from Austria in 1938 were invited back to their original home country. This project motivated the Burgenland Research Society to carry out the first interviews with several invited guests of the project "Exiled. Recollections of Jews from Burgenland. These and further interviews with Jews from Burgenland who had to emigrate in 1938, form the basis of the project. The video documents form the basis material for the media version. Until September of 2003, video interviews were carried out with the following persons: Walter Arlen, Los Angeles; Herta Balonga, Buenos Aires; Hans Deutsch, Buenos Aires; Eva Dutton, London ; Marietta Fluk, Media, PA (USA) ; Shlomo Galandauer, London ; Natalie Gluck, London; Mordechai Grünsfeld, Tel Aviv; Fedor Heinrich, Buenos Aires; Kurt Heinrich, Rockville, MD (USA); Rudolf Heinrich, Buenos Aires; Elisabeth Helfer, London ; Hanny Hieger, Wien ; Elisabeth Hirsch, Hackensack, NJ (USA); Gertrude Hoffer, Montevideo; Alice Howson, Manchester; Henny King, Dundee; Sofie Kobrinsky, Tel Aviv; Liesl Latzer, New York; Edith Lowy Efrati, Jerusalem; José Monath, Buenos Aires; Martha Mond, Buenos Aires; Jonny Moser, Wien; Fred Poll, New York; Leopold Redlinger, Wien; Izchak Roth, Kfar Saba; Fritz Spiegl, Liverpool; Andrew Spiegl, Los Angeles; Edith Wachtel, Los Angeles; Lore L. Waller, Los Angeles; Joseph P. Weber, Pacifica, CA (USA); Josef Weiszberger, Tel Aviv. The Jewish history and culture play an important part in the history of the West Hungarian region and of Burgenland until 1921. Especially the history of state power, going back as far as the end of the 13th century in this region, played an essential role in the development of Jewish culture, as the Jews were always able to find protection over the centuries, especially under the rule of the Esterhazys in North and Middle Burgenland and under the Batthyany family in South Burgenland. The founding of the "Schebha qehillot", the "Seven (holy) Jewish communities" in Deutschkreutz, Eisenstadt, Frauenkirchen, Kittsee, Kobersdorf, Lackenbach and Mattersburg, followed after the deportation of Jews from Vienna in 1670/71. They developed into the most significant Jewish-orthodox communities of Europe. In south Burgenland, Jewish communities developed in Schlaining, Rechnitz and Güssing.1) For the first time in 1867 Jews received the full equality of citizenship, and were able to settle and buy land outside these protected Jewish communities. Initially, Jewish families settled in various different parts of Burgenland (at that time West Hungary). The number of places with Jewish inhabitants later decreased, but was still pretty numerous until 1938.2) The importance of Jewish culture for Burgenland can be measured against this historical background. In literary documents and in many life stories, there is a lot of tolerance and integration of Jewish families and their culture to be found in this region. In this context, the organised and non-organised persecution, exile and dispossession of Burgenland Jews already a few days after Austria's Anschluss to Nazi Germany, is described as "happening over night".3) This particular enthusiasm the Nazis and the opportunists hoping for advantages showed towards the regime, is also to be seen as the reply from the NS-ideology and its followers to the good cohabitation existing until then between Jews and non-Jews. At the same time there was a wave of antisemitic thinking and action in Burgenland in the time before 1938 in parts of the non-Jewish population. Only in this way can the days after the "Anschluss" be understood, during which the Gestapo relied upon the support of many people in the dispossession of furniture, stored goods, household objects, and other things left behind by exiled Jewish families. The so-called "wild Aryanisations" in the first weeks after March 1938 let one suppose that the "good cohabitation" of Jewish and non- Jewish families, was only partial and/or only to be found on the surface of Jewish-non-Jewish everyday- and business relationships. Most of the Jewish families left Burgenland for Vienna after their very brutally executed identification in 1938. From there many of them were successful in fleeing abroad, mainly to the USA, to Israel, Switzerland, England, Argentina and other states. Those who didn't succeed in fleeing in time were deported to concentration and extermination camps in Poland. For the time after 1945 in Burgenland, there is no evidence of any special efforts made to try and work up the past, in the compensation- or repossession process, other than those made Austriawide. Thus, the percentage of restored stolen property against the number of dispossessed goods is minimal 4). Only very few Jewish families returned to Burgenland, and very few kept in touch with their home country or visited it again later. The number of published autobiographies and memories of Jews from Burgenland is also minimal. Only since the mid 80's has there been more intensified discussion on the history of persecuted Jewish families from Burgenland, mainly carried out by the second post-war generation of course. Since the end of the 80's, the scientific and publishing media work in Austria has focused its attention on the history of the dispossession and persecution of Austrian Jews by the Nazis. This also illustrates the general approach to the subject since 1945.The Waldheim debate in 1986 marks a break with the political past 5), causing an erosion or rather a modification of the victim-theory, through Austria's official recognition of the joint responsibility in the crimes of the Nazi-regime.6) Repressed and previously hushed up questions come up more than ever today. Contemporary history research has brought a new generation of scientists who, contrary to the post-war generation, have a far more open and less emotional approach to these themes. Even though antisemitic undertones are currently on the increase again in public and political discussion, and the working up of the past is sometimes considered a closed chapter 7), one can still observe a general climate, where willingness to discuss and deal with personal- and parental histories exists. The discursive recollection of national socialist crimes is carried by artists, politicians and intellectuals, and gives the necessary public debate form and content. The working up of the past is not a "closed chapter". The process of reminiscing in a past political context is far more an essential precondition for dealing with history, and is the expression of an individual and collective moral willingness to reflect. The very late start to dealing with these questions requires the documentation of recent history. On the one hand there are still numerous white patches on the Austrian memory map, and on the other the number of survivors of National Socialism still living is naturally on the decrease. The project "Exiled. Recollections of Jews from Burgenland." therefore sets itself the following aims: The documentary protection of life-historical memories of Jewish victims of National Socialism in Burgenland, publically and individually. 2001 June:
Interviews and photo-portraits within the framework of the presentation
"Welcome to Schlaining" 2002-2004 April
- November: Further interviews in Israel, Great Britain, USA etc Alfred
Lang, Project coordination Gert
Tschögl, Scientific Manager Barbara
Tobler, Editorial staff Andreas
Polsterer, transcriptions, translations (Hungarian) Kim
Hogben, translations (English)
Milenia Snowdon-Prötsch, Interviews (Stadtschlaining) Hans
Wetzelsdorfer, Photographer (Stadtschlaining) Peter Snowdon, camera (Stadtschlaining) Eva
Brunner-Szabo, camera (Argentine, USA, England, Vienna)
1 see REISS, Johannes: Jüdisches Leben im Burgenland. Ein Rückblick auf die Zeit vor 1938. In: BAUMGARTNER, Gerhard / MÜLLNER, Eva / MÜNZ, Rainer (Ed): Identität und Lebenswelt. Ethnische, religiöse und kulturelle Vielfalt im Burgenland. Eisenstadt 1989, p. 108-115, p. 109-110. (back) 2 BAUMGARTNER, Gerhard: Die Arisierung jüdischen Vermögens im Bezirk Oberwart. In: KROPF, Rudolf: Juden im Grenzraum. (=Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten aus dem Burgenland, Heft 92), symposium as part of the "Schlaininger Gespräche" 1990. Publ. by Burgenländisches Landesmuseum, Eisenstadt 1993, p. 339-362, p. 346-349. (back) 3 see TSCHÖGL, Gert: Was blieb, sind Erinnerungen. Zur Geschichte der burgenländisch-jüdischen Kultur. In: DEINHOFER, Elisabeth / HORVATH, Traude (Ed): Grenzfall. Burgenland 1921 - 1991. Veliki Borištof/Großwarasdorf 1991, p. 115-126, p. 122-124. (back) 4 BAUMGARTNER, Gerhard: Die Arisierung jüdischen Vermögens im Bezirk Oberwart. loc.cit. p. 361-362. (back) 5 SANDNER defines the political past as the "political, judicial and cultural way a democratic society deals with its dictatorial past." SANDNER, Günther: Hegemonie und Erinnerung. Zur Konzeption von Geschichte und Vergangenheitspolitik. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 30 (2001) 1, p. 5-17, p. 7. (back) 6 see UHL, Heidemarie: Das "erste Opfer". Der österreichische Opfermythos und seine Transformation in der Zweiten Republik. In: op.cit., p. 19-34, p. 26-28. (back) 7 for example: BURGER, Rudolf: Austromanie: Der antifaschistische Karneval. In: Merkur, 54 (2000) 5, p. 379-393. (back) |
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