| Popis: |
Despite the devastation exacted upon them, their families, and their community, some Austrian Jews nonetheless returned to reestablish lives in postwar Vienna. They consciously and willingly chose to return to live among gentile Austrians, many of whom had at least sympathized with National Socialist ideals, while others had benefited from the robbery and expulsion of the Jewish community or even taken an active part in the genocide. Returnees confronted the reality of a city and a people still influenced by seven years of Nazi ideology and “racial” thought about Jews, as well as a nation striving to cast itself and its citizens as the first victims of the Nazis. As they navigated their city as individuals, as a community, and as members of society, they endeavored to rebuild a Viennese Jewish identity. This paper examines the re-forming and renewal of a postwar Viennese Jewish identity in the context of a then-developing Austrian national “victim myth.” |
