A Jew in Vienna

Before I came to Austria, I looked at the Jewish community. I wondered if a Jew, me, would be comfortable in Vienna. I came with prejudices. My father would not buy a German car. My experience with the German accent was American movies, Nazis and evil. In my mind, I would sometimes flinch, hearing German. So could I, would I, be welcome, happy here?
The answer is yes and no.

Yes, life is good in Vienna. It is easy to get around. Good health care is provided. It is amazingly clean and beautiful!

I long ago gave up the “not buying German products” and I’ve visited Germany a few times. I’m glad to be able to say that I like the German language much more now. I have so many pleasant interactions in German. I think of the lady that I buy flowers from, the delightful German teachers at school and the sounds of life around, counting in games, acquiring vocabulary, using German myself.

Which brings me to Yiddish. I make many connections. I can hear my dad say “noch mal”, again. My mom say inga pathchin, messed up. The word for salmon in German is lachs, pronounced lox.

It is okay to be Jewish here but it isn’t okay to mention it too much. When I occasionally mention a Yiddish word, no one asks how much Yiddish I speak or how I know it or even if I am Jewish, a fair assumption. It simply isn’t talked about, that is the feeling I get.

There are reminders of the Jews that lived here. Squares, about envelope size, are on the streets and on buildings with the names and dates of the people that lived there. Not many people know of them or notice them. In this city of grandeur, they have no grandeur.

There is a memorial in the old Jewish section that I really like. It is a bare library.

I have visited the Jewish Museums and find them sad and troubling. The top floor of the Jewish museum is crowded with Jewish stuff, menorahs, torah covers, that nobody claimed?

In the audio guide it says that the Jewish community was dissolved. That word troubles me, sugar dissolves, people don’t. People were murdered. Berlin uses the word murder in their Jewish museum. Austria doesn’t include, from 1938 onwards as their history, since they were annexed by Germany, Anschluss. My trouble with that, I think a person, country, people don’t heal unless they deal with the past.

Austria is a contradiction in many ways. They had a Jewish Chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, for many years. They also didn’t pay reparations until 1995.

So, is it comfortable to be a Jew in Vienna? For the most part, yes, there are probably no more Nazis here than in California.