From the Opera to the Streets

Abstract

Austrian Jews Prior to the Nazi Takeover, by Ilana F. Offenberger, Ph.D

Offenberger provides a thorough analysis of Viennese Jewish reactions to the Nazi Takeover in March 1938. Focusing on how Vienna’s Jews viewed the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933, and how they perceived the threat of Anschluss, this chapter scrutinizes the important question of why so few fled the country between the years 1933 and 1938. Beginning with an overview of the history of Austria’s Jews in the first decades of the twentieth century, the chapter goes on to briefly discuss the history of the Austrian/German union and to investigate the first weekend of the German annexation (March 11, 1938). Using primary sources, Offenberger explains (from the Jewish perspective) the impact this event had on Jewish families, individuals, and the community at large. With an urgency to make life altering decisions, Vienna’s Jew’s initially respond in a number of ways.