Flying Home

Zusätzlich

As I fly home, I prepare to live in the United States again instead of Vienna. I am saying good-bye to the Ubahns and Schnitzel (not that I ate any Schnitzel, I'm just being nostalgic). No more sachertorte and no more Heurigen. I do not know what I am going to do with myself when return to the states and return to my real life. I will learn German with a vengeance.

When I boarded my flight home I grab a newspaper, in English so I can read it. On the second (page 3)page find it full of stories that seem to highlight aspects of my trip, my Viennese experiences and my interests almost as if the paper was written for me. The headlines: German official defends race remarks, 6 Roma are killed in capital of Slovakia, and Fighting over a Renaissance masterpiece. It goes from racism to gypsies and human rights to a dispute over art. The main picture on this page is of the Ukrainian leader Viktor F. Yanukovich before the memorial for victims of war and violence in Berlin. While all these stories are not front page news, it is indeed close to the first page and is top news to me.

Now I'm off to finish that paper.

Tributes

It’s my last full day in Vienna and I am turning on the television for the first time see what’s happening in the world via CNN world news. Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much that was news to me. The headlined stories were as follows:

· Hungary air show on 70^th Anniversary of Airforce

· Iraq’s change of Power

· Cricket Scandal Probe, Pakistan

· Floodwaters, Pakistan 1600 dead, 17 million affected

· Chilean trapped for 3 weeks, drill will reach in 2-4 months; playing cards will be delivered to miners.

As I was waiting to see an actual story about some of these stories throughout the world, I was disappointed when an hour long tribute to Harry Connick Jr’s humanity work for New Orlean’s 5^th year anniversary of Katrina on Larry King Live. As I sat in my flat watching the news I found myself growing more and more annoyed with this story, when I was sure there had to be more important stories with either the miners or the flood in Pakistan. Katrina was five years ago. Devastation is occurring today in Pakistan and now I’m wasting my last day in Vienna watching Harry Connick Jr. advertise his CD. Not only that, but I get the feeling that he’s just trying to profit off New Orleans. Sure, he grew up there, but he even said he hadn’t been there in 12 years. He may have never returned if Katrina had not visited first. Maybe he deserves more credit than I am willing to give him. Even so, I turn the television off when I get a phone call and an invitation to something more interesting.

From the news I head to the Heeresgeschichliche Museum one last time. This Museum has many floors of exhibits and I have yet to see it all after three visits.

Then I’m off to the Ferris wheel at the Prater. This amusement park has survived world wars and we are able to ride it today. It’s incredible to ride to the top and look at the city I have come to know (Ich kenne Wien) and love. All the while, I am pleased to fly home tomorrow. I miss Jeff and I miss my food. I look forward to eating Mexican and Thai. I pick out the skyline of Vienna one last time.

Finally we, our Vienna Class of 2010, celebrates together in Vienna for the last time at the Centimeter Brewery. The swords were epic, the beer quite tasty and the Jäger was the bomb. It’s bittersweet: our farewell hugs to those we experienced Vienna with and our Auf Wiedersehen to Wien. I can’t help but hear the song in my head…

Frankl, Facebook and Heuriger

Upon leaving our three hour tour of Thomas Frankl’s studio, I realized I had not taken a photo with him. It was a shame and I could not leave the country without one photo with him. So I emailed him back and today I get to meet with this gracious man once again. As we arrived he was quick to serve us pretzels, cookies and water. As we snacked we began creating him a Facebook account. This was an interesting experience, for one, I never signed up for anything on a German Website and for two, I never thought in my life I would sit next to a Holocaust survivor explaining the ins and outs of Facbook privacy while creating his site. Meeting him and spending hours with him learning his story was surreal enough. Now he has a Facebook.

Next our class met a Heuriger that is a super authentic Heuriger. It is only open four weeks a year, just long enough for it to serve its yearly wine. It was delicious. After the first round of wine pitchers were refilled we ventured into the world of debate. The question: to legalize Marijuana or not. I chimed in since I was raised in Humboldt County and remember pot was what we seasoned our garlic bread with. To my knowledge, we never sprinkled it on our bread, my dad just called his stash in his tin oregano. However today I am careful as to which butter I spread on my toast in the morning at my dad’s. It was a fun lighthearted debate, I think, anyways most in our group are happy when a little schloshed. We did not solve the problem of legalizing weed and I do not want to turn this blog into a debate on the subject so I will change the subject.

We left the Heuriger happy and warm, returned to our apartments and then I headed out with the group to the Rathaus. We made it to the nightly film festival just in time to catch the closing credits for the show. The Rathaus was however spectacular lit up at night. I was going to walk home from the innere stadt, but I grow tired and cold so I catch the Ubahn. I crawl into bed still in awe that I now have a picture of myself with Thomas Frankl. I am beyond excited to know that he has agreed to come speak with Kathy Stuart’s Summer Abroad class 2011 (and more with willing health). It makes me want to come back next summer just to spend more time with him.

After a few conversations I have decided to eat, live and breathe German. I have since ordered a few comic books in German online and have bookmarked Der Spiegel online. I am also enrolled in more German courses at UC Davis with the ‘weiter’ determination to conquer my lack of confidence in speaking and to learn to hear listen and comprehend in German.

Stadttempel

To celebrate my last Saturday in Vienna, I decided I would spend Shabbat at the Stadttempel, Wien. The men meet at 9 a.m. downstairs and the women trickle in between 10-10:15 a.m. in the upstairs. As I arrived I was surprised when three police officers met me on the street corner of Seitenstettengasse I looked down the street and there was another police van surveying the opposite corner. I had noticed a few police in the area during the week but I figured it was because I was in the throws of the Viennese “Bermuda Triangle,” der Bermudadreieck.

Come to find out that the security was indeed for the Stadttempel, with extra pre-cautions taken on Shabbat. Police surrounded the Synagogue. I was taken aback by the presence of the armed guards, with what looked to me like semi-automatic rifles. They asked me where I was headed and I asked them, “Darf ich in die Synagoge gehen?” They waved me through and then a man and woman met me at the entrance of the Synagogue. They were in dark suits and were wearing earpieces; they reminded me of bodyguards.

As if finding armed guards on the street corner was not surprise enough, what happened next caught me even more off guard. The Temple guards proceeded to question me for a good 5-10 minutes before they let me in. They asked me my full name and requested a form of identification. The first picture ID I found was my museum pass which was not good enough, they needed an official ID like a passport. I asked them if my California driver’s license would do since I left my passport in my apartment. It sufficed. Next they asked me a whole battery of questions: where was I from, why was I in Vienna, who do I know in Vienna, how long have I been there, does anyone in Vienna know I am at the Temple today, does anyone in the U.S. know I am at the temple today, do I practice Judaism in my home country, do I attend synagogue in my home town, how often…? Each time they asked a question they looked up at me and then down at my ID. I was almost positive they were going to catch me in a lie—I wondered if they could tell I was not 100% truthful about my weight and I do not really know my actual height. Each time I answered a question it seemed to inspire another.

Then they asked me about what I had in my pockets, and my bag. I told them what I remembered having: a notebook, pencil, and camera (which I decided not to use so I would not be asked to leave). They wanted to see it all and they asked me to turn on the camera. The last entrance exam was a pat down and then I was deemed safe to enter. They told me I was free to go upstairs. Needless to say I was ecstatic when I gained entry although still a little rattled by the ordeal.

The service was indeed beautiful. I listened to the Rabbi read the Torah in Hebrew, so I knew even less about what was being read than if it was in German. Either was I loved watching and listening—it was so melodious. At one point the Rabbi had all young boys join him and he led them in a few Psalms with call and response. Then as they finished, another Rabbi collected the scrolls and brought it around so all in attendance could kiss it. Then they opened the curtains behind the altar, where there were a number of other scrolls each one robed and crowned (photo stolen from http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/tag/dpf.)

As I sat in the temple I could not help but ponder its history and Vienna’s tragic Jewish history of persecution. Vienna’s first Synagogue was destroyed in a cleansing crusade against the Jews in 1421. Vienna under the rule of Albrecht V burned the medieval Synagogue to the ground along with 212 wealthy Jews.[1] The first synagogue was forgotten and buried until it was unearthed during the construction of Rachel Whiteread’s memorial to the murdered Austrian Jews. The cleansing of the city however, was celebrated in the 16^th Century with a plaque that reads:

Flumina Jordani tergunturlabe malisque

Corpora cum cedit, quod latet omne nefas.

Sic flamma assurgens totam furibunda

Per urbem 1421 Hebraeum purgat crimina

saeva canum. Deucalioneis mundus purgatur

ab undis sicque iterum poenas igne furiente luit.

For those, like me who cannot read Latin, it translates:

In the waters of the Jordan, their bodies were cleansed of filth and malady. And all that was hidden and sinful disappeared. Thus, rose in 1421 the flames of hatred throughout the city and expiated the horrible crimes of the Hebrew dogs. As the world once was cleansed by the Deucalion Flood, so were all the sins atoned in the raging flames.[2]

Under Leopold I, the Jewish community in Vienna was banished in 1670.[3] Maria Theresia hated the Jews and expelled them from Prague and Bohemia in 1744 (then repealed in 1748). While Maria Theresia’s expulsion was not upheld, her hatred sustained: “ ‘I know of no greater plague than this race, which on account of its deceit and hoarding of money is driving my subjects to beggary.’”[4] Her son, Josef II, the “Enlightened Absolutist”[5] made a place for the Jews in Vienna and was known as “Emperor of the Jews.”[6] Josef II legislated the Tolerance Edicts of the 1780s, which lifted the Jew tax and other restrictions. This new tolerance allowed the Jews new opportunity in the community, economics and education with new freedom the Jews enjoyed a Maskilim, Jewish Enlightenment, but still restricted by the Familiants Laws, residency..[7] Building “restrictions” also remained on Synagogues, which would prove helpful to the Stadttempel in the century following its construction.[8]

Josef Kornhäusel was the architect whose “greatest achievement” was the Stadttempel built in 1826.[9] It was built in a city that only allowed Christian houses of worship in the inner city to be accessible from the street. In addition The Jewish Synagogue could not look like a Jewish Synagogue from the outside so as not to compete with the beautiful Baroque churches and Christian faith. It was built sharing walls of adjacent buildings. When the Nazis took over the city in 1938, the Stadttempel was the only synagogue that survived Kristallnacht the November Pogrom. The Nazis gutted the Synagogue of all things Jewish, but the building was not burned down to the ground like the others in the city in order to preserve the other buildings in the inner city block.[10]

Today over 70 years later I am sitting in the same synagogue that survived the Nazis and their occupation. As I look around at the congregation I wonder about the grey-haired men sitting below. Sitting across from me is a little Jewish woman who looks to be at least the same age as Thomas Frankl. I wonder if they ever ponder their synagogue and its survival in the same manner as me, or if their life and breath is an even more remarkable story of survival than the building. The Nazis gutted this building in 1938 and used its records of Jewish births to aid them in proving Jewish race, address and connection with those “cleaned up” by Eichmann.[11] These people, living in a city that continually tried to eradicate them, still remain and I think of Ruth Kluger’s novel Still Alive and hope to read her German novel Weiter Lebens (which translates living and still living).

Le Chaim.

---

[1] Steven Beller, A Concise History of Austria, 33-34

[2] The text and translation made available by the Art Forum am Judenplatz 2. Today the plaque with the Latin inscription remains mounted on this address.

[3] Steven Beller, A Concise History of Austria, 68

[4] Steven Beller, Concise, 88.

[5] Beller, Concise, 94..

[6] Beller, Concise, 97.

[7] Beller, Concise, 96-97.

[8] Nicholas Parsons, Vienna A Cultural History, 186.

[9] Parsons, Cultural History, 202.

[10] Information gathered on Jewish Walking Tour in Vienna August 2010.

[11] Thomas Frankl said Eichmann was known as the “clean up man.”

Niemals Vergessen

Today was by far the best day of the program. Hands down. No contest. Today I was honored to meet Thomas Frankl, a Jew born in 1934 in Bratislava. His father, Adolf Frankl, survived his arrest and internment and finally the Death March from Auschwitz. Thomas, his sister and mother went into hiding and survived Hitler’s Final Solution as well. The family was re-united after WWII and to Vienna to escape communism. Adolf Frankl began sketching and painting his Visions from the Inferno.

I will never forget this day. I first heard of Adolf Frankl from a Jewish walking tour I took around the city. There was a sign on his door that said the studio was closed for vacation. I took note of the return date. I went back to the shop where I met a volunteer named George who told me that Thomas, the artist’s son gives guided tours and usually hangs out around the shop in the afternoons or I could send an email and arrange for a guided tour. I sent an email, Thomas replied with a phone number. We arranged a time for the tour that usually takes 45 minutes to an hour. August 27 around 1 pm Professor Stuart, Richard and I went to his studio for the tour.

He spent over three hours with us telling his story and his father’s story.

Their story begins in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Thomas Frankl begins his story by telling us about his Father, Adolf Frankl. He brings out a prisoner’s hat and tells us how “one of those un-humans” would treat the prisoners. At roll call the prisoner would hold their hat at their right side. An SS officer would at times take the hat and throw it over to the electrified fence and order the prisoner to retrieve it. When the prisoner obeyed the orders the sniper in the tower would shoot the convict attempting an ‘escape.’ After telling this story he Thomas ponders the situation. The sniper may have really thought it was an escape attempt or the prisoner could have just been caught in the middle of a sick game. Thomas Frankl says, “alles ist möglich” (everything is possible).

Then Thomas tells us about the Judenstern, the yellow Jewish star. His mother was arrested and sent to a labor camp for hiding the star by holding her purse across her chest while on the streets, covering the piece of yellow fabric. She escaped the labor camp, aided by a woman in the camp.

Thomas has the same purse that his mother carried. Inside of it is her handkerchief. Thomas pulls it out and puts it in his shirt pocket saying, “So I can always feel her with me.” Inside her purse is also a candle that they would carry into the shelters during air raids. As a Jew with no access to shelters he said, “some people helped but not too many.” In the next breath he explains, “we never generalize” and that is why he lives in Austria. Unlike Ruth Kluger who remembers Vienna as the “city [that] hated Jewish children,” Thomas remembers Vienna as a haven from communism.

Thomas Frankl goes on with his story. On the day after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, a holy day), September 28, 1944, the Nazis arrested his family. This shows Nazi’s organization and planning: arresting families when all were together for holiday at night when all would be at home. Thomas explains that the law was to write on the door the family members name and religion. His mother wrote Roman Catholic instead of Jew and the family was not arrested at this time. However, a man whose son worked for Adolf Frankl noticed the Frankl family was not arrested and tells the police a Jewish family was missing. The family was then arrested.

Thomas pauses to tell a story that describes his father’s character. After the war and after his father’s death march, internment and arrest the same man who assured the arrest of the Frankl family met Adolf alive again. His father forgave the man and employed him again. Thomas tells this story through tears as he remembers and loves his father.

He returns to the story of his family’s arrest. His family was taken to Eichmann’s assistant who questions his mother. She assures the man that they were not Jewish but had been brought to the station by mistake. They decided to send her and her children home (Thomas and his sister) but would only arrest Adolf, his father, who was undeniably Jewish. Thomas’ mother asks for an escort out of the station and two soldiers escorted her and her children out as an Aryan.

He explains to us that Eichmann was “the cleanup man.”
This is when Professor Stuart mentioned that I had voice recorder and Thomas agreed to let me record the rest of our time together. I will kick myself for a long time for missing the beginning of his story. He tells us more details of his hiding, his father’s story and then about his father’s art. For those interested you can listen here as soon as I figure out how to get it online.

To be continued…

United Nations

Today is UN visitation day. To get ready I do my hair and make-up so I look more presentable than I usually do when I head to class. I also quadruple check that I have my passport with me. As we co through security I notice that they were less concerned with the presence of my passport than I was and I am reminded of the time I went to Ethiopia under the impression that I needed the Yellow Fever Flu vaccination. I did receive the shot among 5 others when I did not have complete immunization records proving I was protected against certain childhood diseases. Anyways, the airport security in Addis Ababa did not care to see my Yellow fever certification that I spent a week sick (puking) after inoculation. I offered the yellow fever certificate to the security anyways to make myself feel better. The passport issue at the UN was not that big of a deal.

Now on to Vienna instead of Addis Ababa.

The United Nations in Vienna is one of four in the world. Other cities hosting the United Nations are New York (NY, USA), Geneva (Switzerland), and Nairobi (Kenya).

There are six official languages: English, French, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Spanish. In order to be a translator one must be fluent in three of the official languages and one of them must be the mother tongue. I am 1/3 of my way there. A story that wonderfully explains the art of translation is as follows: a Russian diplomat was telling a joke. Jokes are usually lost in translation. So in order not to offend the diplomat by a failed joke, the translator told it’s listens, “the Diplomat is trying to tell a joke, please laugh softly.” The audience laughed, the diplomat thought he was funny, so all were pleased and war was diverted (italics are my own addition).

Here is another attempt at translation humor:



The United Nations in Vienna is the headquarters of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency (http://www.iaea.org/). This agency dates back to the Manhattan project and has been in operation since Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, uttered his famous words “my God, what have we done.” The IAEA has since made its mission to never have to utter those words again in the context of atomic war. The main objectives of the IAEA are non-proliferation and security. There are 187 countries that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and four categories of atomic states.
1. Nuclear Weapons Sates: USA, Russia, United Kingdom, Franc and China
a. These states have detonated nuclear bombs before January 1967
b. Under the NPT pledge not to transfer nuclear weapons and pledge to facilitate
peaceful use of nuclear energy
2. Non-Nuclear Weapon States: 182 states in total
a. Pledge not to proliferate
b. Accept IAEA safeguards
3. States outside NPT
a. India and Pakistan; declare they are without nuclear energy
b. Israel: is without declared nuclear energy, but sources believe they have it
4. Abandoned NPT States
a. North Korea
b. The UN diplomatically dealt with N Korea to avoid war

In regards to security the IAEA advises states in safety and security guidelines but leaves it up to individual states to enforce the protocols. They write the laws and run the atomic world on paper then hope for the best. It would drive me crazy to feel like my hands were tied when a nation thumbs its nose at my laws, however I understand the importance of legislation. Nothing is illegal unless the law says it first. Precedence is key.

From the IAEA we headed to lunch where one of my classes noted interest in a UN internship on account of the economical and scrumptious cuisine. I liked the price but expected more from my vegan dish of Indian food, and remind myself not to have such high expectations for meatless dishes in the schnitzel capital of the world.

Our next main lecture is on Human Trafficking, “Affected for Life” (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/index.html) Trafficking is a global problem that is complicated due to the amount of parties involved in the crime. There are recruiters, transporters, smugglers, harborers, and receivers. The crimes also usually cross international borders and the victims are detained under force, deception, fear, and coercion. As part as the UN’s offensive against trafficking, the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) train police for signs of trafficking and create tools to prevent, suppress and punish.

I am quite interest in the area of human rights, from gypsies to Jews in the Holocaust, to Darfur and beyond. I could see myself working in an institution that deals with human trafficking or other human rights agencies that were more hands on with the victims than the UN. The internship at the UN is only two months and I get excited about the open doors after a short commitment. When I get back to my apartment I fill out the application for the UCDC program. My interest in an internship in Washington DC is re-ignited and I plan on extending my final year at Davis one more quarter. I’m not sure if I’ll ever end up in DC, but I decide to take professor Stuart’s advice, to “throw out hooks” of opportunity and walk through the open doors. I’m spontaneous and flexible enough to get excited about the adventures that lay ahead.

In Search of Kindertransport Denkmal

25 August 2010

After a long day of debriefing Mauthausen and walking from the Jewish Museum to the Military History museum I caught a ride to Westbahnhof in search of a memorial that I heard about on my second Jewish walking tour. I heard that there was a memorial to commemorate the British for receiving Vienna’s children in das Kindertransport. In December of 1938 (nine months after the Anschluss) the Refugee Children Movement organized the transport of over 10,000 children out of Vienna to England in order to save them from the concentration camps. I found myself on a mission to find this memorial. How hard could it be to find?

It proved to be quite difficult, so difficult in fact that I left without having ever found it. I didn’t leave because I was tired and hungry after two other museums since lunch (although I was indeed ‘hangry’). I left because I had spent an hour searching for it and asked five different people who worked there if they knew where it was. One of the answers was to hand me a map while circling the tourist information desk at Albertina Platz, telling me to ask them as if to say memorials are for tourists. That was while I was inside the building. Here I did find one plaque with the inscription, “Niemals Vergessen” (never forget), but not the right one.

Since my search failed inside the building I decided it must be outside by where the trains are. That is where I would put it, so people who arrive and depart can all happen upon this memorial. No dice. I was not ready to give up yet. Since it wasn’t outside by the trains, it must be at a main entrance. That’s also a logical place to put it, so everyone entering from the streets would remember this opposition to fascism and never forget the lives of children lost. I walked around the entire building and looked at each entrance and still could find no Kindertransport Denkmal. Then I proceeded to walk home thinking it may be in the parks up the street. Just across the street I found a gigantic and impossible-to-miss statue, in the middle of the road, commemorating Lueger (which is quite troubling considering his anti-Semetic ideologies).

I arrived home trying to give my failed search a couple benefits of doubt. One: maybe I was unable to find it because it was not actually there and I had been given false information. Two: or it could have been removed for safe keeping while parts of the station are under construction. Three: maybe it was there and just hiding right underneath my nose. However, I do not believe any of my doubts would withstand trial. One: when I returned home to the Internet I was able to confirm that the statue was there at some point through picture evidence in two locations, which I will locate just in case I missed it. Two: if it used to be there, why did not one person I asked know about it or seem to even recognize the term ‘kindertransport’ (I’ll give a little grace for the possibility for a loss in translation)? I obviously have questions and some may wonder why I care.

I have three main concerns: First, I am concerned that I was directed to a tourist info booth while looking for a memorial. Is a memorial solely a tourist attraction? Second, why is a memorial so hard to find? Should it not be in plain sight in order to be seen by the most amount of people as possible? Finally, why did not one single employee know about it and more poignantly, why did they not even seem to know about the kindertransport? I am not the most perceptive person in the world and can understand not noticing a statue. However, I walked away not certain if those I asked even had any idea what the Kindertransport was, which is most troubling. How can one “never forget” (which is a slogan written across the memorials of the Holocaust) what one has no clue about in the first place? Maybe some of my concerns and questions will subside if I am able to find this elusive memorial before I return to California. I have one week, however I’m not sure if I can rest until it’s found.

…to be continued.





I finally found it. It was however, in plain view and I cannot believe I missed it. While I may have been blind, my concerns are still there, why could I not find a single person who worked in the place who could point me to the location of this memorial? I asked the info desk at the OBB that the memorial sits next to and I even asked the workers of the info booth that the memorial stares at day in and day out. Not a single person could point me in the right direction. As I photographed the memorial, I did notice travelers stopping by to read the plaque about the kindrtransport memorial. At least a few more would never forget.