Multigenerational Experiences of Flight: The Case of Jewish Refugees from Galicia and Bukovina in Vienna and Lower Austria, 1918–1941

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although in the focus of antisemitic and National Socialistic propaganda, our level of knowledge about the ‘Ostjuden’ (Eastern Jews) relates almost to the time before World War I, it was precisely the war that drove Galician and Bukovinian Jews from their homeland and reshaped this group. Because of the collapsed bureaucracy, increasing antisemitism, and mutual mistrust, it is difficult to identify this group within the city: ordinary registration forms were often not completed. This contribution defines the Viennese ‘Ostjuden’ on basic of the birth registers of the Jewish Community. The given information about the parents provides a more comprehensive picture of origin, social status, place of residence, and so on. Most of them – neither the refugees, nor those who had left the successor states of the former Austrian monarchy – were denied Austrian citizenship and were not seeking to return to their ‘homelands.’ The status of designated statelessness posed an existential risk for those affected after the National Socialists came to power. Therefore, this article explores the extent of the effect of the Nazis’ murder machinery and whether they managed to escape.