Project Servitengasse 1938
The Servitengasse 1938 project is an initiative of citizens in the 9th district of Alsergrund in Vienna to deal with the fate of their "disappeared neighbors".
Emergence
The ninth district of Vienna had until 1938, after the second district of Vienna , the second-highest percentage of Jewish population . Since there are still few places that commemorate that population, citizens of this district have made it their task to do remembrance work and to erect a memorial. The project developed from a private initiative of the residents of the house at Servitengasse 6 and was founded in 2004 with the support of Agenda 21 on Alsergrund .
The aim of the project is the multi-layered examination of history. For this purpose, the fate of the expelled and murdered Jewish residents of Servitengasse was investigated in a research project. As the research showed, 680 people lived in Servitengasse at the time of March 1938. 377 of them were persecuted as Jews by the National Socialists. 150 people were probably able to flee abroad in time, 133 were deported to concentration camps (5 of them survived the concentration camp), 21 people died in Vienna, 5 survived in a so-called mixed marriage, the fate of 68 people is unknown. 111 shops and company offices were located in Servitengasse, 61 of which were run by Jews. 12 of 24 properties in the alley were Jewish and were Aryanized, only 8 properties were restituted. There were also three Jewish student associations and one Jewish youth organization that were closed after March 1938.
It cooperates with various schools and with survivors of the Shoah and maintains contact. Furthermore, adult education courses are held.
Plaque
A memorial plaque in Servitengasse 6 commemorates residents of the house who were robbed, expelled, murdered or deported. Originally, a plaque with the names of the victims of the house was supposed to be placed directly on the house. This was not possible. On September 20, 2005, with the support of the Alsergrund district council , it was unveiled on public ground in front of the house by Martina Malyar and Paul Lichtman, a former resident of the house who had come from the USA.
memorial
426 keys commemorate the Jewish residents and business people who were evicted from their homes in 1938. Signs on the keys contain the names of the people who lived and worked in Servitengasse. The keys are displayed in a glass case. This was embedded in the corner of Servitengasse and Grünentorgasse. The memorial was designed by the artist Julia Schulz and unveiled on April 8, 2008.
Memorial plaque Schubert School
A memorial plaque was unveiled on April 1, 2011 in the Schubert School at Grünentorgasse 9. It is a reminder of the Jewish teachers and students who were no longer allowed to teach or to attend school after the annexation of Austria. In particular, the plaque commemorates the religion teacher Gotthold Antscherl, who was murdered in 1942 with his family in the Maly Trostinez extermination camp .
Exhibitions
In 2010 an exhibition was presented in two parts. Some of the researched biographies were presented in the Fortuna Gallery in Berggasse. The second part of the exhibition was made up of posters showing how people lived together before and after 1938. These posters were presented in the shop windows on Servitengassen.
In 2012 there was another exhibition at the Volkshochschule Wien NordwestVHS in Alsergrund.
Publications
- Birgit Johler / Maria Fritsche (Ed.): 1938 Address: Servitengasse. A neighborhood in search of clues , Mandelbaum Verlag , Vienna 2007
- Under the Alsergrund. Servitengasse 1938 , documentation
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Servitengasse 1938. Searching for clues in the neighborhood
- ↑ Servitengasse: 426 Keys Against Oblivion. In: derStandard.at. April 8, 2008, accessed December 17, 2017 .