Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to be able to speak to you today at the Hollabrunn city hall. I would like to try to find ‘life words’ against the silenced deaths. We have an obligation today, to name and remember the atrocities of Shoah for what they were. We can only do justice to this, however, by talking about the lives affected, and thus finding the words for these silenced deaths.
The more insight we obtain about the events of Shoah, the less we seemingly understand how they could have occurred. How do we utter these unspeakable acts? This is a question we need to ask ourselves especially when trying to explain theseevent to children and youths. I have found approaches to this in Yad Vashem and Lochamei ha Gitaot; wherein approaches and models to dealing with the explanation of such topics to young people and descendants are written. I would like to try the narrative implementation of the Yad Vashem principle using examples from the Weinviertel.
In her drama “Totschweigen”, the great Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek addressed the disturbing events surrounding the mass murder at Kreuzstadel and the persistent silence of an entire Burgenland village. The mass grave of the Jews murdered by the local Nazis in the last hours of the war has not yet been found. In the decades after 1945, it was not only in Rechnitz however that people were hushed.
As someone who has been involved in memorial work for many years, I have heard the saying: “Let things rest at last!”a countless number of times, and I cannot help but ask myself“Has anyone truly ever really delved into these issues? When was our history ever fully dealt with and understood?". Even decades after the events, the motto here is:" Happy is the one who forgets what can no longer be changed!". This phenomenon has already been mentioned decades ago by Erwin Ringel in his Book "The Austrian Soul", were it is explained in greater detail.
‘Franzi and the Synagogue’
This phenomenon of silence has also been part of my life story from childhood. On my way home from my elementary school, I passed the ruins of the Mistelbach synagogueeveryday.
I stood there countless times and marveled at this strange building, overgrown with tall weeds, like an enchanted castle. Any questions I had about it however, forever remained unanswered and were dismissed with a simple ‘You wouldn’t understand!’. It took decades for me to find the answers I was looking for, and through this, I never stopped questioning the Shoah.
-Teaching project in Yad Vashem.
For years, the Republic of Austria, in cooperation with “Remember.at”, has enabled teachers from all types of schools to study for several weeks at the Yad Vashem and Lochameiha Gitaot Holocaust memorials in Israel, giving them insights into educational approaches to conversations with children and young people of all ages. This was also a great opportunity to have my own questions answered, for which I am very grateful.
Yad Vashem means: ‘Giving names back, to those who were reduced to numbers.’
The educational Yad Vashem principle can essentially be summarized as follows:
‘Don't talk about 6 million people – this is not comprehendible.
Don't talk about mountains of corpses – this is not imaginable.
Talk about human beings - call them by their names - these people had a life before – during, and some of them also afterthe Shoah!’
Examples from the Weinviertel:
Even here in the Weinviertel, there were people who got caught up in the racial madness of the National Socialists overnight. I would like to name some of you by name, as a means to represent all of you:
This is JOSEF KOLB from Gaweinsthal
‘A real Weinviertel in California’.
I was lucky enough to have met him and his wife LILLY KOLB (born Eisinger) from Mistelbach in 1994 in Los Angeles.
These are IGNATZ and ALBERT DRILL from Laa / Thaya.
Your tombstone at the Jewish cemetery in Mistelbach reads:
‘The support broke, the only son,
hope already rests in the grave.’
It tells of an accident in which Albert's only son was killed. The mother died soon afterwards. The father Ignatz was the last to be deported from the Jewish community of Laa / Thaya. The grave that had been prepared for him in the Jewish cemetery in Mistelbach has remained empty to this day.
Though each of these examples would be worth exploring in depth. I would like to try this today using the example of the woman I was able to get to know personally from the surviving members of the former Jewish community of Laa / Thaya.
KAROLA ZUCKER born in Laa, Austria.
Married to HERMANN ZUCKER from Fulda, Austria.
They have two sons, a daughter, and six grandchildren.
In her handwritten memoires, Mrs. Zucker left an impressive document for posterity. She tells of a happy childhood in the security of her parents' home, of a school that she loved more than anything. A school she was chased away from one day to the next after Hitler’s invasion. A pain she never got over. When I met her for the first time in Austria and she accompanied me to Laa / Thaya, it was her great wish on the first day to be able to go back to her old school for a visit. I was working as a teacher at this same school at the time, so I was able to fulfill her wish.
She was not only expelled from the school, she was also‘expelled’ from her hometown. Her family fled to Hungary, where her father had relatives. Again, she went to a school, this time Hungarian, without speaking a word of the language. After they had settled in (rather badly), they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the summer of 1944.
After months in the shadow of death, the day of liberation finally came. After having hoped and waited for so long to see her family again, certainty grew that she was the only member to have survived, and the thought of emigrating to Israel started to form into reality.
When the immigrant ship finally reached Haifa, the English did not allow anyone to disembark. With desperation, the immigrants aboard tried to get off the ship any way they could. The English soldiers opened fire and a bullet struck Mrs. Zucker in both thighs. She was carried ashore on a stretcher, and the next day her photograph appeared in the newspaper with the headlines reading: ’Wounded Girl’.
What followed was another internment camp. It was there that Karola met and fell in love with her future husband Hermann Zucker, an auxiliary policeman.
After she was released from the camp, she married her Hermann, and soon, the first son was born. Finally, she had afamily again. These years coincided with the creation of the State of Israel, certainly not an easy time, but people started to gain a new perspective.
After the meeting in Austria, I was allowed to visit Mrs. Zucker in Israel and so I got to know her family, with whom I am still in contact with to this day. Mrs. Zucker's family lives in Israel, but they have never forgotten their roots. When Mrs. Zucker realized her great wish on June 19, 2005 and the memorial to the Jewish community of Laa / Thaya was opened, they were all there: The Zuckers, the Maneles, the Jokels and also my dear friend Kitty Schrott, a daughter of the Drill family. About 100 descendants of members of the former Jewish community were present. They came to remember that their roots stem in Austria….
An old Jewish wisdom says:
"The secret to reconciliation is called memory!"
But remembering also means being able to call things by their names.
And I wish for Hollabrunn to aquire this memory that leads to reconciliation with all my heart.
