Pilot Project in Vienna – Meet the Library: the Inverviews
We were well aware that the interviews with the descendants of the persons expelled from the University and/or individuals close to them or conducting research on them would be the most emotional element of this project. Therefore, carefully selecting the biographies, informing the conversation partners in advance and preparing the students well for the interviews was very important to us.
Memorial book as the source for the selected biographies
The most important source for biographies was the Memorial Book for the Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna 1938. In coordination with the authors of the Memorial Book (Herbert Posch from the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna, and Katharina Kniefacz from the Vienna University Archive and the Vienna Mauthausen Committee) we selected ten very different biographies of persons expelled from the University of Vienna.
Screenshot: Murdered people documented in the KZ Mauthausen, amongst them also Otto Popper
1938 – a life-threatening turning point for academics
We aimed to demonstrate to the students participating in the project how dramatic a turning point the year of 1938 was for a large number of academics and students at the University of Vienna. Close to completing your studies, only one examination left to take, and then being expelled from the country. Years of studying, all for nothing. Or being a successful, world-renowned academic and being kicked out by your own University. Just like that. Leaving everything behind – family, friends, your flat and belongings, the surroundings which you have come to love. And what does it mean for a city, when half of the people who used to research and teach at the University are suddenly gone? The University of Vienna was internationally renowned for its various schools, such as in the fields of medicine, physics and philosophy, and had produced several Nobel Prize laureates. And all of a sudden, most people who had made this possible were gone. This resulted in a standstill. Many of those expelled managed to flee the country in 1938. The majority of those who did not manage to flee into exile were deported to concentration camps, which in most cases equalled a death sentence. Expelled academics who survived were not brought back to Austria after the war – despite the fact that many of them wanted to return. Lacking prospects in their former home country, many of them stayed abroad. The irony of history is that some of them were honoured very late (often only posthumously) by having places or awards named after them. In short, Austria reacted very late or not at all.
Screenshot: Interview with Ruth Wodak, daughter of Erna Mandel
The interview – face to face with history
The school students did not learn about all these aspects as part of regular classes at school, from videos or from the Internet, but rather during personal conversations with descendants as well as with people who investigated the history of the expelled persons in detail. Students had around four weeks’ time to prepare for the interviews and conduct them. Before the interviews, they studied available material and prepared meaningful questions as well as an interview guide. After contacting the interview partners, the students scheduled the interviews, which would also be video-recorded. Three buddies supported the students in taking all these steps to help them navigate uncharted territory. Lea Engelmann, Philipp Depaoli and Jakob Gudler are students of the University of Vienna and future teachers of history education. They mainly helped the students in preparing and conducting the interviews.
Screenshot: Interview with Franz-Stefan Meissel in the Josef Hupka meeting room at the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna
The interview partners
- For the conversation about Rosa Ebner (studied medicine, emigrated to Great Britain, returned to Austria in 1945), the students interviewed her son Friedl Ebner. The interview was conducted in the school’s ceremonial hall.
- Tim Bonyhady, nephew of Katharina Gallia (studied chemistry, doctoral degree revoked, emigrated to Australia) and author of ‘Good Living Street. The Fortunes of My Viennese Family’ lives in Australia. The students interviewed him via video call.
- Franz-Stefan Meissel, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna gave an interview in the Josef Hupka meeting room at the Juridicum to discuss the tragic fate of Josef Hupka (professor at the Faculty of Law, emigrated to the Netherlands, deported to Theresienstadt, where he died).
- Linguist Ruth Wodak is the daughter of Erna Mandel-Wodak (studied chemistry, emigrated to Great Britain, returned to Vienna). She met the students for an interview in the Arcaded Courtyard of the University of Vienna.
- Martin Margulies met the students at the Vienna Central Cemetery to talk about his grandmother Ida Piepes-Margulies (studied history, member of the resistance movement in Austria, fled to Switzerland, then to Belgium and France, returned to Austria in 1945).
- For the conversation about Oskar Morgenstern (professor of mathematics, visited the USA for a lecture tour where he stayed after Hitler had seized power in Austria in 1938), the students interviewed Karl Sigmund, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Vienna.
- Dominique Dubois, son of Elfriede Pichler-Dubois (studied French and Latin, emigrated to Great Britain), lives in London. He documented his mother’s story and self-published the book ‘My Mother and her Family’. He met with the students in a video call.
- The story of Heinz Pollak (studied medicine, completed his studies with a ‘non-Aryan doctoral degree’, emigrated to Belgium, internment camp in France, returned to Austria in 1945) is documented in the book ‘Familientreffen. Eine Spurensuche’ (‘Family gathering. A search for clues’, only available in German), written by his daughter Susanne Pollak. Among other things, she discussed this elaborate book project with the students.
- To find out more about Otto Michael Popper (studied law, emigrated to Italy, internment in Italy, deported to Mauthausen where he died), students interviewed historian Katharina Kniefacz, who researched the biography of Popper and answered students’ questions on the premises of the Mauthausen Committee Austria.
- Former president of Caritas Austria Helmut Schüller visited the Gymnasium am Augarten academic secondary school to talk to the students about his predecessor Leopold Ungar (studied law and theology, emigrated to France and Great Britain, returned to Austria in 1947).
These conversations were a critical and crucial part of this pilot project and enabled the participating students to build a bridge between the past and the present. The project made history come alive and allowed the students to experience it first-hand. We would like to thank everybody involved in the project for making this possible. It has enabled a dialogue between the Gen Z and post-war generation.
Screenshot: Aula of the University of Vienna
Screenshot: Interview with Franz Schüller about Leopold Ungar