A few years ago, I visited Vienna and the Holocaust Museum that is near the center of the old Jewish community that was largely decimated during the Anschluss, or German occupation of Austria from 1938. A remarkable sculpture exists in the center of this quarter, near the Museum. It is comprised of a gigantic stack of books in stone, symbolic of the representation of the Jewish people as the "people of the book." Danielle Spera, whom I met on my trip, is now the director of the Viennese Holocaust Museum that has recently been expanded.
Almost the entire Jewish community was eliminated, with Austrian cooperation, during the occupation, either through forced or voluntary migration. Those who couldn't escape were sent to the killing centers, which only a few managed to avoid by going underground. Only within the last few decades have Jews of Austrian ancestry been returning to Austria.
In recent years, the question of repatriation of very famous art works, including many by Klimt, on display in Vienna's museums, have been raised by Jewish descendants of those who originally owned them.
Here is an interesting arcticle about this process of repatriation, and the larger issues about Austria's past raised in Sondra Perl's presentation and in our discussion today.
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