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Putting Judenplatz first on my 'To Do' list is a very conscious decision. In a week filled with pleasurable and interesting things to see and do this was the place that jolted my complacency and made me remember that Vienna wasn't always a home for everyone. For Jews it was never a secure place and long before Anschluss they had already been expelled twice, in 1420 and in 1670. When I arrived at Judenplatz, the centre of the old Jewish ghetto I got very taken up with admiring the proportions and buildings of this really pretty square. I knew the jewish Museum was here but was in no way prepared for the Rachel Whiteread Holocaust Memorial which by some oversight I had not read about. It's at the opposite end of the square from the statue of the playwright Ephraim Lessing and turning round I actually wondered what 'that shed' was doing obstructing my view. The 'Shed' was the memorial and going closer I felt a real physical shock quickly followed by emotional meltdown. It's described as a bunker but to me it was a gas chamber and nothing else. Bleak and uncompromising, it has no ornamentation apart from the bricks shaped like book spines, symbolising the thousands of burned books. It's a sickly greyish-white colour with a large locked door and no means of escape. On the raised kerb surrounding it are lists of the Nazi death camps.
Is this a fitting memorial to the 65,00 Austrian jews exterminated by the nazis ? Personally, I still find it hard to decide and it's a memorial that has caused huge controversey. The levels of loathing and revulsion that it aroused in me were quite hard to cope with but I suppose that could be seen as a measure of its success.
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The Jewish Quarter in Vienna,is located next to the riverside.This is another nice place to walk and see all the old buildings and architecture,even though all best buildings,palaces and churches are located in the center.
There are also a lot of small restaurants and shops. Leave a Comment
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Judenplatz has become a place of remembrance for Jewish and non-Jewish alike. It contains a memorial, the Shoah, and is located on a site of an ancient
medieval synagogue, which can be visited when you tour Misrachi House (Judenplatz 8).
The Shoah Memorial was built to serve as a reminder of the crimes of the Holocaust and other events in the persectution of Jews in Austria. It was designed by a British artist Rachel Whiteread for victims of the Shoah.
It is a massive concrete cube, 10 x 7 meters, and ~4 meters high. The names of the 65,000 Austrian Jews who were killed are carved into the tiles around the memorial. Leave a Comment
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Right opposite of the famous Albertina you see this monument for the victims of fashism, made by Alfred Hridlicka.
When you click on my 2nd picture, you might understand the meaning more easily:
There are the 2 marble sculpture-towers and between them there is another sculpture and on the right a very small person on his knees - that sculpture has a sad meaning, dating back into the times, when the Nazi regime took over in Austria :
This sculpture shows one of the many jews, who had to brush the streets of Vienna after the take-over by the Nazis - Doctors, Professors from university and other formerly rich and famous citicens of Vienna on their knees, cleaning the streets, watched and jeered at by their neighbours...
Btw.: The sculptures were made by Alfred Hrdlicka, who still calls himself a communiste today.
in the beginning the sculpture of the jew on his knees did not have any thorns on top - they had to been added, because lots of tourists used that sculpture like a bench, taking a rest on the back of the sculpture, certainly not in a bad meaning, but simply not at all understanding what they were doing.... Leave a Comment Directions: This monument is opposite of the Albertina-entrance, close to the Opera and Hotel Sacher.
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On 12th March 1945 a bombing raid destroyed Philipp_Hoff , a magnificent building built in nineteenth century.
This monument was unveiled in 1988, it is neither a sign for victory or war.
I tried to find out more about it but unfortunately everything was written in German but after looking around I found a board, which stated the history of it. Leave a Comment
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This is the site of the Jewish ghetto in Medieval times. In the centre of the square is a statue by Siegfried Charoux of the German playwright and critic -Ephraim Lessing. His works plea for tolerance towards the Jews and the Nazis tookoffence to this tribute. They destroyed it in 1939 but it was later re-designed by the same sculptor and re-instated in the square.
In 1996 Rachel Whiteread was the winner of a competition to design a monument for the Jewish victims of the Nazi regime. It was unvieled on the 9th of November 1999 - the anniversary of the Kristal Nacht. On a personal note I do not like the design very much - but that is my own personal thoughts.
Also on the Square is a plaque recording that Mozart once lived at numbers 3-4 but the houses are not open to the public. Number 8 is a lovely Baroque house which is the only remaining Jewish institution in the square. It houses a school, a prayerhouse and a restaurant.
sorry but I have to replace my old photos next visit! Leave a Comment Directions: U bahn Stephansplatz
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Although it is small, I would definitely say that the Jüdisches Museum is a "must-see" for anyone who is spending more than 24 hours in the city. It's important not just too see what is here, it's important also to think about what's not here - or rather, "who's not here," namely Vienna's formerly large and formerly flourishing Jewish community. At one time that community was an integral part of Vienna, and Vienna's Jews made important contibutions in the Arts, Education, and the Professions. But Jewish life in Vienna was stamped out during the years of Nazism, and left a gap in Vienna's culture which has never truly been filled. The Jewish Museum has a few permanent displays, but when I was there most of its space was dedicated to an excellent exhibit concerning the Jewish contribution to the musical life of the Vienna. Leave a Comment Directions: About halfway between Stephensplatz and the Hofburg; open daily except Saturdays, 10 - 6.
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During the past two decades, increased efforts have been made in the city to confront the history of Jewish Vienna with all its positive and negative sides and to come to terms with its Jewish heritage. In addition to Jewish institutions, whose number has risen considerably in large part thanks to the support of the City of Vienna, there are a number of museums, institutions and memorials that evoke the importance of Jewish heritage: the Jewish Museum, the Museum at Judenplatz, the Sigmund Freud Museum, the Schonberg Center, the Memorial against War and Fascism on Albertinaplatz and the Shoah Memorial on Judenplatz, to name the most important.
The city council of Vienna commissioned Alfred Hrdlicka to erect the Monument Against War and Fascism, a controversial move given the site's history and its extreme prominence. The monument includes a crouching Jew scrubbing the pavement, recalling the days following the Anschluss, when some of the city's Jews were forced to clean up anti-Nazi slogans with scrubbing brushes dipped in acid. Many Jews found the image degrading, among them Simon Wiesenthal, who successfully campaigned for a proper Holocaust memorial to be erected in Vienna, which can now be seen in Judenplatz. Leave a Comment
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Since the erection of the Shoah Memorial and the establishment of a museum about medieval Jewry, Judenplatz has become a singular place of remembrance. There are also excavations of the medieval synagogue here, which can be accessed through the museum in the Misrachi House (Judenplatz 8). It contains documentation of the first Jewish settlements in the Middle Ages, which date back as far as the eleventh century, and of the first major expulsion of Jews in the years 1420-21, the so-called "Vienna Geserah." The Jewish community was completely annihilated at that time - an anti-Jewish relief on the building at Judenplatz 2 ("Zum großen Jordan") serves as a reminder of this event. Austria's Catholic cardinal Schönborn arranged for a memorial tablet to be placed on the house at Judenplatz 6, as a reminder of the anti-Jewish role of the Catholic church; in April 2001, the Jewish Community placed another memorial tablet, this one devoted to those who helped Jews during the Nazi era on the so-called Misrachi House at Judenplatz 8.
Mozart also lived in a house on this square (Judenplatz 3-4) in 1789, and this is where he composed the clarinet quintet (K.581) and the opera Così fan tutte. The square also has a statue of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who was an outstanding representative of the Germany Enlightment.
The square also holds Der Österreichische Verfassungsgerichtshof and Der Verwaltungsgerichtshof, 2 major courts for the Austrian law system. Leave a Comment
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The old Jewish Quarter lies north of Stephensplatz and the Graben. Its medieval center was Judenplatz (Jews' Square) until the progrom of 1421 when the synagogue was dismanted and its stones carted off to build an extension to the alte Universitat. The remains of the synagogue have been escaveated and now form part of the new Judenplatz Museum Wien. On the square is Rachel Whiteread's Memorial of the Victims of the Holocaust. The memorial which commemorates more than 6500 Austrian Jews who were killed by the Nazis between 1938-1945, is designed so as to resemble a library turned inside out, so shelves of closed books face inwards. Around the base are the names of the camps to which Austria's Jewish population was deported.
You can see San Sabba written on one of the pictures. We visited San Sabba in 2003. Leave a Comment
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