Vienna - A short stopover from Israel - Last day!

Early this morning we left for the Schonbrunn Summer Palace, the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers, built in the mid-1700's. It takes just 15 minutes by subway to get to the Palace. It is huge with 1441 rooms and vast gardens. Close to 4 million tourists visit annually.  

We began with a tour of the palatial interior of the palace.

And then we went outside for a tour of the amazing gardens, including the maze, the hilltop overlook, the outdoor hall of mirrors and the games area.

We ended our visit to the palace with a cooking demonstration of the correct way to make Strudel as taught by the chief palace chef - at the end of the demo, everyone was given a slice of the strudel, and we politely declined, exclaiming that we were lactose intolerant - figured it would be hard to begin explaining kashrut to him at that point (despite the fact that the flour had the word GLATT in big letters on the front of the bag)! It sure looked good and smelled good! And it was absolutely amazing just how elastic and stretchy his dough was....

We returned to the city, grabbed a quick lunch and then went to the Stadttempel synagogue for a tour of the shul. This was the only shul in Vienna not destroyed on Kristallnacht, simply because it was in the centre of a large apartment block in the centre of the downtown area. The shul is still used today. In the shul is a memorial to those who were murdered in the holocaust and names of individuals are etched on tablets in the memorial.

This ended our short visit to Vienna, as we returned to our apartment, collected our luggage and headed back to the airport for our flight to Toronto. We really enjoyed the beauty of the city and while there was a very bittersweet element in the realization that only a small percentage of Jews survived, what is clear is that they did survive against all odds and today live as a testament to the resilience of the Jewish people and the concept of AM YISRAEL CHAI!!!

Vienna - A short stopover from Israel - Part 3

The next morning we went to visit the Jewish Museum of Vienna. It is located in the centre of the 1st district almost midway between the Stadttempel and the Opera House on Dorotheergasse. Among its exhibitions is "Jewish Vienna - Then and Now" which contrasts the flourishing community in the 18th and 19th century and how the Shoah impacted it.

Vienna is a very walkable city and we continued to explore the city, passing many more beautiful architectural sights, statues, gargoyles and life-size street art; including an amazing bakery that produced very realistic cakes. 

We eventually reached Judenplatz, the large square right near the main synagogue in town, the Stadttempel that survived the Shoah. In the square is the city's Holocaust memorial and a branch of the Jewish Museum, built on the ruins of a 14th century medieval synagogue. 

In front of the Museum in the centre of the square is the stark cubic Shoah memorial and in the floor stones around it are names of places where Austrian Jews lost their lives during the Shoah. Of interest is the plaque that is on the outside wall of the museum which pays tribute to the Righteous Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazi slaughter. 

After touring the Museum, we headed back into the second district and ate at a Uzbeki kosher restaurant called Bahur Tov, where the food was very tasty. When we finished, we walked through the Jewish district and headed over to one of the local shuls for Mincha and Maariv. 

Near the shul was the site of the former Leopoldstadter Tempel, the largest shul in Vienna before the war. Built in 1858 in a Moorish Revival style, it became the model for many large European synagogues including the great Chorale Shul in Budapest. It was destroyed on Kristallnacht. There is nothing left of the shul but in its place the local community has erected large poles that approximate the huge height of the shul, as well as a memorial plaque explaining its history.

This had been a very busy and interesting day; a day filled with memories for those who perished and imagination as to what Vienna might have looked like had the Shoah not occurred. 

Tomorrow, our final day and final post for Vienna.