ABOUT THIS BOOK
Centropa has created this online edition of our Vienna Jewish Sourcebook specifically for classroom teachers in our international network. Here is what you’ll find on this site.
ESSAYS: articles about Vienna’s Jewish history and the novelist Joseph Roth, as well as how Austria has been facing its difficult past—and how for years Austrians avoided doing so.
THE CENTROPA ARCHIVE: the longest section in this online book is comprised of life stories of ten Viennese Jews: they will tell you about their childhoods, how they escaped or were hidden during the Holocaust and, in one case, how Leo Luster survived ghettos, death marches and concentration camps. Each of these ten people bring their stories all the way up until today.
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CONTEXTS: a timeline of Austrian history, along with short biographies of the country’s most notable Jewish personalities and Austrians who shaped this country’s history and culture.
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RECOMMENDED READING: a highly subjective and very incomplete listing of our favorite books. Get to know these titles and we guarantee you will be the hit of your next cocktail party.
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FILMS TO WATCH: we have taken our most compelling interviews and turned them into short films.
WATCH OUR FILMS
LEO LUSTER
The remarkable story of Leo Luster, who grew up in Vienna’s second district in the 1930s.
Leo tells us about the thriving Jewish life in Vienna during the interwar years, which came to a halt with the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938. Eight months later, after the infamous Kristallnacht Pogroms against Jews, his father was arrested and lost his job while the Luster family was thrown out of their home. In September 1942 Leo and his parents were deported to Ghetto Theresienstadt. After two years Leo and his father were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In January 1945 Leo was sent on a death march but could survive. He was freed by the Red Army and was able to find his mother again. In 1949 they moved to Israel where Leo met his future wife and found a new home.