Moshe Jahoda

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Moshe-Jahoda-Platz in Vienna, named on November 7, 2018

Moshe Hans Jahoda ( 1926 in Vienna - October 19, 2016 in Israel) was an Israeli civil servant and diplomat of Austrian origin, as well as a long-standing top official of the American Joint and the Jewish Claims Conference . He was a citizen of Israel and Austria.

Life

Jahoda was born as the son of Hermine and Robert Jahoda in the 15th district of Vienna . His parents ran a small printing company. In 1938 Jahoda witnessed the annexation of Austria to the German Reich , the enthusiastic reaction of large parts of the population and the November pogroms of 1938. In 1939, at the age of 13, he escaped to Palestine on a children's transport . His parents and his younger sister Gertrude (born 1931) stayed in Vienna, had to leave their apartment and move to the 9th district, and were finally deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on September 24, 1942 . On January 23, 1943, father, mother and daughter were transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp , where all three were murdered.

Five months before the outbreak of World War II, Moshe Jahoda reached Palestine and was looked after by the children and youth alijah , first in Jerusalem, then in Kibbutz En Gev in northeastern Palestine, south of the Golan Heights , where he stayed until 1948.

From 1946, before Israel became a state, he served as an officer in the Hagana underground army . In 1948 he took part in the first officer course of the Israeli army , attained the rank of major and was injured in the war of independence . In later wars he took part as a reserve officer. From 1953 a civilian career followed, including as Vice Director General in the Ministry of Agriculture, as Counselor in the embassies of Israel in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, as Vice Chairman of Kupat Cholim , the health services of the Histadrut , and as General Director of the Mishan charity , the seven old people's homes, five Operates children's villages and 65 retirement clubs.

In 1990, Jahoda was appointed the first director of the American Joint (AJDC) in formerly communist Hungary . During his four and a half years in Hungary he started social projects for the elderly, programs for young people and projects to revitalize Jewish communities. In 1991 he also took over the AJDC management in Bulgaria , and in 1995 for Slovakia . In autumn 1997 he was appointed Associate Executive Vice President of the Claims Conference in New York, since February 1999 he has headed the Claims Conference office in Vienna, which, on the one hand, looks after the interests of the Austrian survivors and, on the other hand, acts as a liaison between the Jewish communities in Austria and Austrian institutions. Jahoda was in charge of the negotiations with the Austrian government regarding reparation and compensation measures, which were concluded on January 17, 2001 in Washington with the signing of a far-reaching agreement. In 2004 he was appointed representative of the Claims Conference in Germany and director of the successor organization, a role he held until 2006. He was a member of the board of trustees of the Austrian Future Fund and honorary curator at the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism . In his home district of Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, he was significantly involved in the erection of a memorial for the burned-down gymnastics temple and, as the first interview partner of the Herklotzgasse 21 project, gave the exhibition the title: Triangle of my Childhood . The German-language edition of his book Here, There and Other Worlds appeared in a Viennese edition in 2013 and was presented to the Austrian Parliament by the President of the National Council, Barbara Prammer .

Moshe Jahoda was married, the father of three children and the grandfather of seven grandchildren.

Since November 7, 2018, the square on which the gymnast temple stood has been named Moshe-Jahoda-Platz on the initiative of the District Representation Vienna 15.

Quote

“I had a certain ambivalent attitude towards Vienna. As a child, I had happy hours in Vienna. And I have met good and lovely people in Vienna. But I also received a lot of hatred, from classmates and from teachers who had the swastika on their jackets. The day after Hitler came, they turned that around and the swastika came out. Not all of them were friendly and sympathetic to children who had felt at home in Austria from birth and believed that it was their country. […] I never realized why the Austrian people felt obliged to sacrifice 230,000 Austrian soldiers for Hitler, 40,000 civilians in air raids and 70,000 to 80,000 Jews who were gassed and executed in concentration camps. "

- Moshe Jahoda, 2013

Awards

Book publication

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maren Häußermann: "Grandpa, I hope you're watching" . In: Stadtleben - Wiener Zeitung Online . ( wienerzeitung.at [accessed on November 9, 2018]).
  2. ↑ Petra Stuiber: Follow-up memories: “I have no forgiveness in my soul” . Der Standard , March 17, 2013, accessed October 19, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Jahoda, Moshe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jahoda, Moshe Hans (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Survivor of the Nazi regime, Israeli official, Claims Conference official
DATE OF BIRTH 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 19th October 2016
Place of death Israel