This article was originally published by the newspaper „B’nai Brith Focus. Offisical Publication of B’nai B’rith District 21 of Australia and New Zeland“ in November 1995 on page 1. A former citizen of Laa, who had to flee Laa in 1938, iniciated the article.
Austrian History Lesson
With thanks to Sis. Herta T. for passing on the information, from Austria comes a unique story. Sixteen-year-old Magdalena Müllner, who lives in the Austrian town of Laa (35 miles from Vienna) was channel surfing about three years ago when she came across a short TV program called "The Synagogues in Lower Austria". Ms. Müllner was startled to become aware that a Jewish community had once existed in her home town. Further enquiry revealed that at least 50 % of the population of Laa (a town of nearly 4,500 people) didn't know that a Jewish community had ever existed.
Now a 19-year-old student at the Vienna University Law School, Ms. Müllner has for the last three years pursued research into Jewish life in Laa before the Holocaust and managed to trace fourteen families, now living all over the world, who had previously lived in Laa. She now maintains contact with her "friends" and is quoted as saying of her efforts "I didn't want hose people to die a second death by being forgotten." Ms. Müllner has now spoken about her research at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and has been to Israel.
