Vienna

Vienna 

We arrive in Wien (Vienna) last night and checked into the Stephanie, the oldest hotel in town (1600s). The question is how do they know? Nobody can prove whether or not it is true. No witnesses left to testify. A claim made proudly that cannot be easily disputed. We will take them at their word for now. Old as it claims to be, it has flush plumbing and A/C, so why argue?

Off to dinner at Loca for a fix prix dinner that is glorious. Stephen arranged with Susan and Sheryl approving. Good job all.

                                                

If we were impressed with the age of the hotel, this morning we visited Melk Abbey that is over 1,000 years old. A huge barouche structure on a hilltop in the village of Melk, that once overlooked the Danube River, but the river was rerouted and now it overlooks a muddy steam. Still, an impressive complex that is chock full of priceless art, religious relicts and manuscripts.  The monastery is still operated by Benedictine Monks, but they were nowhere to be seen on our guided tour.

Even though the monks were not there, they do not allow any photos inside the Abbey, so these exterior shots will have to suffice.  Susan would have liked it if I could photograph the cathedral with all its ornate statuary and gold leaf. Not allowed by the monks. I wanted to photograph the reusable coffin invented by a king in the 1700s. Yep, trap door in the bottom of the box. The coffin goes into the grave, trap door opens, body drops out,  coffin is pulled up to be recycled. Can’t make this stuff up.

We commander a Ugandan cab driver and with Mark, Steven and Susan issuing conflicting instructions to the poor fellow, we eventually arrive at the apartment building where their mother and her family lived until they escaped in 1939. Just time for a family photos in front of the old homestead before heading back to hotel for our first Jewish Welcome Service dinner.

This is the apartment the family moved to in 1933. In 1938 they moved or were forced to move into a “collection apartment”. We found the address of the second apartment, but it is now an office building. Collection apartments were places where Jews were housed prior to being shipped off to the camps. The Reisner family was evidently close to a deadly end when they escaped in 1939. 

The Ugandan driver wanted to know if we lived in a “Swinger State”? We found out he was referring to the US election. He had a newspaper that had all the polling data state by state. He seemed to be up on all the latest in our election foibles.

Back at the Stephanie Hotel, we meet out fellow Jewish Welcome Service attendees. About 30 children and grandchildren of holocaust survivors at the dinner were from the US, Argentina, Israel, Canada and Norway. Our host explained that the city of Vienna was sponsoring the gathering, but money was problematic. They have been doing this return visit several years, so it may be coming to an end. Evidently, some time ago Vienna had a Jewish Mayor who started the project and it has continued after his term ended. Tomorrow we have coffee and tea with the current Mayor.

Footnote: About 180,000 Jews lived in Austria. About 120,000 escaped. Most of the remainder perished. Many of the Jews were Doctors, Lawyers, teachers, bankers, business owners and other well educated people. After the war, about 1,000 returned.