Judenplatz
Vienna's Judenplatz is a square in the inner city (1st district) ; In the Middle Ages it was the center of the Jewish community in Vienna . It is located in the immediate vicinity of the Am Hof square , the medieval ducal residence, and the school yard as well as Wipplingerstraße. The eventful history of the city and its medieval Jewish community is exemplarily focused on this square. Before 1437 it was called "Neuer Platz" or "Schulhof". With the memorial for the Austrian Jewish victims of the Shoah , Judenplatz became an official place of remembrance and a warning against all racism in 2000.
history
Under the name “Schulhof”, the Judenplatz was the central center of Vienna's Jewish city until 1421 , which was first mentioned in 1294 as the “Schoolyard of the Jews”. The Jewish town stretched north to the Maria am Gestade church , the west side was bordered by the Tiefen Graben and the east side by the Tuchlauben . The south side was the Am Hof square . The ghetto comprised 70 houses, which were arranged in such a way that their rear walls formed a closed boundary wall. The ghetto could be entered through four gates; the two main entrances were on Wipplingerstrasse (Wiltwercherstrasse). The square was lined with fifteen houses and five streets ran into it. Around 1400, 800 inhabitants lived here: traders, lenders, scholars in chamber servitude .
On the square itself was the synagogue (mentioned for the first time in 1204), the only stone building among the private and community houses, which took up a third of the square in the west, the hospital (now Judenplatz No. 10, house of the clothing makers' cooperative), the house of the rabbis and the Jewish school on the grounds of the community garden (now the Collaltopalais ), which was one of the most important in the German-speaking area. Famous rabbis like Isaac ben Mose (called Or Sarua) taught and worked here and made the city a center of Jewish knowledge. After school, the square was called "Schulhof". This name was later transferred to the smaller square in the north of the Judengarten behind the church at the court , which is still called that today. The original school yard was given the name "Neuer Platz" (on Newn placz) since 1423, and since 1437 it has been called Judenplatz.
Excavations were carried out from July 1995 to November 1998 for the erection of the memorial for the Austrian Jewish victims of the Shoah . These are considered to be the most important city center studies in Vienna . On the eastern half of the square, the stone walls, a well and cellar of a whole block of houses that had stood here at the time of the synagogue were also found. The remains of the synagogue, which was dug up under Judenplatz in 1995, bear witness to medieval community life and its destruction. In 2000 the Museum Judenplatz was opened as the second location of the Jewish Museum Vienna . A permanent exhibition on the history of Judenplatz and the foundations of the destroyed Or-Sarua synagogue directly under the memorial can be seen in it ( see also: Jews in Vienna ).
The complete redesign of the square and its conversion into a pedestrian zone was completed in autumn 2000 with the inauguration of the Holocaust memorial. The City of Vienna was awarded the special prize of the City of Vicenza in Italy in 2002 for the design of Judenplatz by the “Dedalo Minosse International Prize's Jury” .
Viennese Gesera
The Wiener Gesera was the most extensive, bloodiest pogrom in medieval Austria. In the spring of 1420, Duke Albrecht V ordered the imprisonment and expulsion of all Jews "from town and country" in Enns for alleged crimes such as the delivery of weapons to the Hussites and desecration of the host . The poor Jews were deported to Hungary , the rich were initially imprisoned. In autumn the persecution of the Jews reached a bloody climax: The few Jews who were still free locked themselves up in the Or-Sarua Synagogue on Judenplatz, in which, after a three-day siege, tormented by hunger and thirst, they committed collective suicide , a kiddush haschem (martyr's death to sanctify the name of God) to avoid forced baptism . A contemporary chronicle, the "Wiener Geserah" (Hebrew: evil ordinance, decree , corrupted in Yiddish as " Geseire ") reports that Rabbi Jonah last set fire to the synagogue and also committed suicide. On the orders of Duke Albrecht V, the last two hundred survivors of the Jewish community were led to the stake on March 12, 1421 on the so-called Gänseweide in Erdberg and burned alive in front of the population.
At the same time, the duke decided that no Jews would be allowed to stay in Austria in the future. The belongings left behind were confiscated, the houses sold or given away to favorites, the ghetto around Judenplatz was torn down, the synagogue was razed and its stones were used to build the old Vienna University . In the files of the university it was noted: “Et, ecce mirum, Synagoga veteris legis in scholam virtutum novae legis mirabiliter transmutatur.” (What a miracle! The house of the old covenant is miraculously transformed into the high school of the new covenant!) The Jewish city was thus depopulated and abolished.
The re-purchased is the ending 16th century Jewish community was in 1624 by Ferdinand II. In the Lower Werd referenced, 1670 but also sold , after which the settlement the name Leopoldstadt received.
Jordan house
The house "Zum Großer Jordan" at Judenplatz No. 2 is one of the oldest buildings in Vienna. Until 1421 the Jude Hocz is named as the owner of the building, later it came to a Georg Jordan, who renewed the building in 1497 and provided the facade with a late Gothic coat of arms relief , which alludes to his name through the motif of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. Above it stands the figure of St. Georg, who kills the dragon with a lance and with which the owner has set a monument for himself. A board announced: “A (nn) o. In 1421 the Jews were burned here. ”Then Jörg Jordan took over the house and replaced the older, lost plaque with the current inscription, which refers in drastic terms to the murderous expulsion of the Jews in 1421 and, in Latin, the killing of the Jews as“ Purification of Dirt and evil "cheered:
- “ Flumine Jordani terguntur labe malisque corpora cum cedit, quod latet omne nefas. Sic flamma assurgens totam furibunda per urbem 1421 Hebraeum purgat crimina saeva canum. Deucalioneis mundus purgatur from undis Sicque iterum poenas igne furiente luit. "
- ("Through the floods of the Jordan the bodies were cleansed of filth and evil. Everything that is hidden and sinful gives way. So the flame of hatred rose in 1421, raged through the whole city and atoned for the terrible crimes of the Hebrew dogs. As they did then If the world was cleansed by the flood, all punishments are served by the raging fire. ")
In 1560 the house was sold together with two neighboring houses to the Jesuits , who established a Konvikt in it, in 1665 they were expelled from it by the Lutheran magistrate and sold it to the city. The house had been privately owned since 1684 and was also called "Jordanhof".
The blunt allusion to the massacre in the synagogue and the subsequent cremation of the survivors, which follows the text of the Jewish complaint of the “Wiener Geserah”, went unnoticed for a long time. It was only after the excavation of the nearby synagogue that the historical representation learned its full significance.
Plaque
A memorial plaque on Judenplatz 6 refers to the anti-Semitic inscription on the Jordanhaus. After long discussions, it was affixed by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn on October 29, 1998 with an admission of Christian failure in view of the murder of European Jews:
- “Kiddush HaSchem” means “sanctification of God”. With this awareness, Jews of Vienna chose suicide in the synagogue here on Judenplatz - the center of an important Jewish community - at the time of persecution in 1420/21 in order to avoid a forced baptism they feared. Others, around 200, were burned alive at a stake in Erdberg. Christian preachers of this time spread superstitious ideas hostile to Jews and thus incited against the Jews and their faith. Influenced in this way, the Christians in Vienna accepted this without resistance, approved it and became perpetrators. Thus, the dissolution of Vienna's Judenstadt in 1421 was a threatening omen for what was happening across Europe in our century during the Nazi dictatorship. Medieval popes turned unsuccessfully against anti-Jewish superstition, and individual believers fought unsuccessfully against the racial hatred of the National Socialists. But there were far too few of them. Today Christianity regrets its complicity in the persecution of the Jews and recognizes its failure. For Christians today, “holiness of God” can only mean: “Asking for forgiveness and hope for God's salvation”.
Misrachi house
At Judenplatz 8 there is the so-called Misrachi House , which dates back to the 12th century and which today largely belongs to the Jewish Museum Vienna . In 1995, archaeologists found the foundation walls of one of the largest medieval synagogues in Europe under the square and uncovered them. With the archaeological finds, the idea arose to combine the memorial and excavations into a memorial complex.
In addition to the showroom, the construction of a museum area in the Misrachi House was designed in 1997, which, as a branch of the Jewish Museum Vienna, will house archaeological finds as well as exhibitions documenting Jewish life in the Middle Ages and a database with the names and fates of Austrian Holocaust victims . On the front there is a memorial plaque with the Hebrew and German-language inscription: “Thanks and appreciation to the righteous among the peoples who, during the years of the Shoah , committed their lives to helping Jews to escape the stalking of the Nazi thugs and thus to survive. "
The exhibition places particular emphasis on the living conditions of the Jews up to the Viennese Gesera , the pogrom in 1421. Remnants of the synagogue , which at that time consisted of three rooms, can be seen, the so-called “men's school” (teaching and prayer room for men) as well as an attached smaller room used by women. You can also see the foundation of the hexagonal bima (the raised podium on which the Torah is read aloud), the outline of which is also engraved in the pavement of the square above, next to the memorial.
Bohemian Court Chancellery
At Judenplatz No. 11 is the building of the Austrian Administrative Court (and until 2012 also the Austrian Constitutional Court ), the former Bohemian Court Chancellery , which was built 1709–1714 according to plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach . After 1749 the remaining parcels of the house block were bought up, and Matthias Gerl was commissioned to expand the palace from 1751–1754, which symmetrically doubled the building towards the west. Further modifications were made in the 19th century; at that time the palace was essentially given its current appearance. The facade facing Judenplatz was originally the back of the building; the main entrance gate has only been located here since the renovations in the 20th century.
The palace was originally the official seat of the Bohemian Court Chancellery, which was organizationally merged with the Austrian Court Chancellery in 1749. In 1848 it was transformed into the Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Interior ; this remained in the palace until 1923. 1761–1782 and 1797–1840 the Supreme Judicial Office, the forerunner of the Supreme Court, was also located here . In 1936 the Federal Court of Justice established by the dictatorship moved into the palace, which has since been the seat of public jurisdiction in Austria.
The female figures above the gates of this building represent the cardinal virtues (temperance, wisdom, justice and bravery), above are the coats of arms of the Bohemian and Austrian countries. In the middle of the attic stands an angel with a trumpet, at whose feet a putto crouches. On its sides there are four vases and two male figures and presumably represent the Bohemian kings Wenceslaus I and Henry II .
To the little trinity
The house "Zur kleine Dreifaltigkeit" at Judenplatz 7 is located in a pedestrian zone at the confluence of Drahtgasse and Judenplatz. The vaulted cellar and parts of the ground floor date from the early 15th century. The building has borne his name since the second half of the 17th century. Originally there were two houses at this point, which were confiscated by Duke Albrecht V in the course of the Viennese Gesera and given to the highest Truchseß of Austria, Wilhelm von Puchheim. The rear building was donated on October 11, 1437 for the holding of a perpetual mass in the Puchheim chapel of St. Stephen's Cathedral . On May 5, 1619, one of the two houses fell victim to a large fire that destroyed several houses in the historic core of the Austrian capital. However, the building was rebuilt soon afterwards. From 1796 both houses had the same owner and were finally structurally connected in 1813. After many changes of ownership, the building was finally acquired and renovated by Peter Löw . In the course of the renovation work, the basement and the access to two underground connecting passages were discovered and exposed. From the time of the Turkish siege in the 16th and 17th centuries, Vienna has a network of underground passages, cellars and vaults. The corridors are sealed off by a concrete wall after about three meters. According to various municipal departments, the corridors were filled up in the course of the design of the square in order to ensure that the square was navigable. In the 1st district of Vienna there was a branched underground tunnel system, the exact topography of which is not available. Today the building houses residential units and offices spread over five floors. There is a restaurant on the ground floor.
More buildings
- Austrian Hospitality School (No. 3–4). In 1783, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived in the previous house . A commemorative plaque from 1929 reminds us: “This is where house no. 244, where WA Mozart lived in 1783. "
- Residential building (No. 5), built in late historical style with a secessionist foyer in 1899 by Max Löw .
- Patzelt-Hof (No. 6), built in 1900 with an interesting foyer by Wilhelm Jelinek ; the previous building was called "To the golden column". See also here .
- House of the clothing makers' cooperative (No. 10), built in 1837/38 by Ignaz Ramm . The house was built instead of the successor buildings to the Jewish hospital, which in 1684 became the colliery and hostel for the bourgeois tailors. The boardroom is remarkable. The house has scissors and a thimble as a coat of arms and houses a small guild museum.
Lessing memorial
On Judenplatz is the monument to the German poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , created by Siegfried Charoux , a commission that Charoux won in 1930 against a competition of 82 sculptors. It was completed in 1931/1932, unveiled in 1935 and demolished and melted down by the Nazis in 1939. Lessing's “Ring Parable” in the drama “ Nathan the Wise ” is considered to be the key text of the Enlightenment and a pointed formulation of the idea of tolerance . From 1962 to 1965 Charoux created a second bronze Lessing monument, unveiled in 1968, which was moved from Ruprechtsplatz to Judenplatz in 1981 . Lessing was in Vienna in 1775/1776, was received in audience by Joseph II and had an influence on the change in the spiritual climate.
Holocaust Memorial
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The memorial for the Austrian Jewish victims of the Shoah by the English artist Rachel Whiteread , who won the competition in 1995 , has stood on Judenplatz since 2000 . The memorial represents an outwardly turned and hermetically sealed library, it consists of a cube with library walls full of petrified books. No book spine is legible, they all point inwards, the content of the books remains hidden. The double doors, which indicate the possibility of coming and going, are locked. The shelves are stocked with a seemingly endless number of editions of the same book, which represent the large number of victims and their life stories. The names of the 45 places where Austrian Jews were murdered by Nazi perpetrators are recorded on the floor.
It is a reinforced concrete structure with a footprint of 10 × 7 meters and a height of 3.8 meters. Although this “nameless” library has a symbolic gate, it is not accessible. Next to the memorial, an engraving in the pavement indicates the position of the Bima of the archaeological site of the medieval synagogue below.
The content of the memorial is closely related to the exhibition on the Shoa that was set up in the neighboring Misrachi House . On the ground floor, the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance in cooperation with the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien has set up an information area on the Shoah. The names and dates of the 65,000 murdered Austrian Jews and the circumstances that led to their persecution and murder are presented to the public here.
The erection of the memorial was criticized by parts of the population, neighbors founded an initiative because they feared for the "beauty" of the square. These protests and proposals to display the synagogue finds (see above) in place of the memorial led to the start of construction being suspended.
During his state visit to Austria in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI. at this memorial of the victims of the Shoah in the presence of the Chief Rabbi Paul Chaim Eisenberg and other Jewish, Catholic and political dignitaries.
literature
- Judenplatz Vienna 1996. Competition memorial and memorial for the Jewish victims of the Nazi regime in Austria 1938–1945 . With contributions by Simon Wiesenthal , Ortolf Harl, Wolfgang Fetz u. a. Folio, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85256-046-2 .
- Simon Wiesenthal (Ed.): Project: Judenplatz Wien. For the reconstruction of memory . Zsolnay, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-552-04982-7 .
- Gerhard Milchram (Ed.): Judenplatz: Place of Remembrance . Pichler, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85431-217-2 .
- Adalbert Kallinger: Revitalization of the Judenplatz . Self-published, Vienna 1974.
- Ignaz Schwarz: The Vienna ghetto, its houses and its inhabitants . Vienna 1909.
- Samuel Krauss: The Viennese Geserah from 1421 . Braumüller, Vienna / Leipzig 1920.
- Martin Mosser: Judenplatz. The barracks of the Roman legionary camp . Phoibos, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-85161-006-2 (= Vienna Archaeological 5).
- Martin Mosser [among others]: The Roman barracks in the legionary camp Vindobona. The excavations at Judenplatz in Vienna in the years 1995-1998 , Phoibos, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85161-023-9 (= monographs of the city archeology Vienna 5).
- Milchram, Gerhard (Hrsg.): Judenplatz Place of Remembrance . Museum Judenplatz / Pichler, Vienna [2000], ISBN 3-85431-217-2 .
- Mechtild Widrich: "The Willed and the Unwilled Monument. Judenplatz Vienna and Riegl's Monument Preservation." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (September 2013), 382-398. Full text
- Paul Harrer-Lucienfeld: Vienna, its houses, history and culture . Volume 2, part 2. Vienna 1952 (manuscript in the WStLA), pp. 407–410
Web links
- Jewish Museum Vienna on Judenplatz
- Sandra Reitmayr - Project Visualization of the Judenplatz
- Vienna's Judenplatz (PDF, 83 KiB)
Individual evidence
- ^ Thomas Chorherr : Vienna. A story. Ueberreuter, Vienna 1987
- ↑ a b Judenplatz in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
- ^ Felix Czeike : Historisches Lexikon Wien , Volume 6, supplementary volume, Kremayr & Scheriau / Orac, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-218-00741-0 , p. 180 f.
- ↑ derstandard.at | Silent Holocaust remembrance at Judenplatz , September 7, 2007
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 41.8 ″ N , 16 ° 22 ′ 10.6 ″ E