Today we started off with 39-degree weather and rain, what a
change. We spent the whole academic portion of our trip today doing a walking
tour of Vienna focusing on the Holocaust. The first thing we did was go to a
couple of sites in the first district of Vienna, including a staircase that was
dedicated to Theodore Herzl who was the father of Zionism. We go to see that
the Jewish community wasn’t allowed to live inside the city wall so they
literally lived right outside the wall.
Next we went over the Vienna River to the third district to
see some plaques that have recently been placed at different sites having to do
with the Holocaust. The first one we saw was at the site of a Jewish school.
During the time of the Holocaust Jews were separated from the rest of the
community, including schools. The first plaque we saw commemorated the building
it was in front of as a school for Jews for 3 months. The second one we saw was
in front of a building where 380 Jews were held before being sent to
concentration camps. The third one was in front of an apartment where 29 men,
women, and children were deported and killed and their apartment was robbed.
The final plaque we went to see was in front of an apartment building with a
synagogue in the courtyard that held about 50 people and is now used as an art
studio. The plaques were put up by people in the community who want people to
learn about the history of the Holocaust in Vienna. It was really interesting
to see how the community reacts to this concept of putting plaques up
explaining the significance of certain locations because people that live in
the buildings do not want the history of their house to be public so the
plaques are small squares in the sidewalk where they can be easily walked over
or covered by snow or dirt.
After we saw all of the plaques we went to see the
Hundertwasserhaus. This was an apartment building with a very interesting type
of architecture. None of the walls, floors, or ceilings are straight, and the
exterior walls of each apartment are painted different colors. You can see
where the walls and floors are based on tiles that line them on the outside of
the building.
By this point it was raining pretty hard so we walked past a
few more locations concerning the Holocaust on our way back to our hotel. One
of the places we stopped at was a memorial for the Jews who were taken out of
Vienna. It had a man standing in ragged clothes, he was standing in a small
room made of rocks. Our professor said that people have tried multiple times to
destroy it because they don’t like it or because it is difficult for them to
talk about that part of their countries history.
Once we finished seeing things as a group we all split up to do our own thing, mine was catch up on my blogs. Today is our last day being in Vienna, tomorrow we head to Budapest for a day and a half and then begin our journey back home.
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