Entry selected by Krzysztof Tyszka from the book “Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow. A guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive”, ed. by D. E. Fishman, M. Kupovetsky, V. Kuzelenkov
Microfilms are held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.
Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow. A guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive, ed. by D. E. Fishman, M. Kupovetsky, V. Kuzelenkov, Scranton - London 2010.
In 1852, the Austrian authorities gave de facto recognition to the Jewish Religious Community as the sole organization authorized to conduct religious, educational, and charitable operations among Jews in Vienna. The community's charter was ratified in 1867 and revised in 1890. The community oversaw the maintenance of various components of Jewish religious life — including the rabbinate, religious education, synagogues, cemeteries, kosher food, and charity — and oversaw the keeping of birth registers. The community was the unofficial representative of Jewish interests vis-à-vis state entities and the city authorities. The community's budget consisted of dues paid by its members. The number of actual dues-payers, however, was small. In 1895, out of a Viennese Jewish population of 133,397, only 12,797 paid the 10-florin community tax, giving them the right to vote in community council elections. By 1924, with a general Viennese Jewish population of 201,000, the number of payers had increased to 53,000. The community council typically represented the wealthiest and most successful segment of the Jews of Vienna. For most of its existence, the community was dominated by adherents of liberal, Reform Judaism. Before the First World War, Orthodox Jews generally abstained from community council elections, and Zionist candidates were unsuccessful. Among its presidents in the imperial period were Ignaz Kuranda, Wilhelm Ritter von Guttmann, Heinrich Klinger, Joseph Ritter von Wertheimer, and Alfred Stern (1903-18). From 1920 to 1932, the president of the community council was Alois Pick, who represented a Liberal-Orthodox alliance. In 1932, the Zionist slate of candidates received the majority of votes, and Desider Friedmann became president. After the Nazi Anschluss of Austria on 13 March 1938, the Jews of Vienna, numbering by that time 115,000, fell victim to the Nuremberg Laws. During Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938), 49 synagogues in Vienna were destroyed, Jewish property was looted, and several thousand Viennese Jews were deported to the Dachau concentration camp. Between the fall of 1939 and September 1942, the Jews of Vienna were systematically deported to ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland, and, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, to occupied territories there, including the Baltics. The Jewish Community was officially dissolved in November 1942.
281 files
The collection's contents are catalogued in three inventories. The inventories are arranged by structure and document type. The collection has charters of the Jewish religious community of Vienna — and of affiliated organizations: the Union to Aid Jewish Students, the Union for the Care of Orphans, Jewish Literary Association, the Mendelssohn Jewish Literary Union, and others. It contains the minutes of meetings of the community board for 1891-1938 as well as community financial documents — statements, estimates, summaries, income statements, cashbooks for 1928-37, and tax tables. The collection contains reports on communal election preparations, and on auditing the community's finances; a historical survey, composed by Biedermann, of the activities of the Jewish religious community of Vienna for fifty eight years; and lists of Vienna synagogues. Among the documents found in the collection, there is an agreement between the Jewish religious community of Vienna and the Orthodox Jewish religious party Agudath Israel on dividing responsibilities between them; documents on the structure of the community board; a report by the community board presidium on the conduct of the winter 1935-36 charity drive initiated by the Austrian government; a report by community vice president B. Rappaport and the architect J. Gartner on the construction of a Jewish cemetery (with plans enclosed); an announcement by the community denying Hitler's statements connecting Jewish and communist organizations; and congratulatory letters, addresses, and telegrams from the Jewish religious community of Vienna to the Jewish religious communities of Graz, Fünfkirchen, Gross-Kanischa, and Ehrendorf. The collection also contains materials on Jewish emigration; these documents may originate from the archive of HICEM (see Fond 740,"HIASJCA Emigration Association, HICE"). These include lists of Jewish emigres from Austria, Poland, Latvia, and the Soviet Union; personal documents of émigrés; bulletins on emigration conditions for Jews from Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Poland; queries from Jewish organizations on the whereabouts of Jewish migrants from Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, and other countries; and maps and statistical surveys of the Jewish population and of Jewish emigration from Austria and from Vienna.
Еврейская религиозная община (г. Вена)