AHC interview with Norbert Shapiro.

November 30, 2016Norbert Shapiro (Schapira) was born on July 17, 1928 and raised in the 2nd District of Vienna. After the November-Pogrom, when his school was burned down, he escaped to the United States, where he lived with relatives in Philadelphia, before pursuing a career as a teacher.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with William Kestenbaum.

October 26, 2016William Kestenbaum was born on Sep. 19, 1921, in Vienna. He grew up in an upper class house at Schottengasse 10 in the 1st District of Vienna. His father Alfred Kestenbaum, a famous eye surgeon, taught at the university of Vienna, and during WWI he had been running an eye hospital in Sarajevo. William Kestenbaum's mother Adelheid Kestenbaum was a physician as well. Both of his parents had been raised in Vienna and had met at the university of Vienna. After primary school, William Kestenbaum attended “LEH Grinzing”, a private school in Vienna and graduated in July of 1938 after Hitler had come to Austria. After the Anschluss a former American student of Alfred Kestenbaum had offered to send an affidavit, which the family gladly accepted: they left Austria for the USA in August 1938 after William Kestenbaum had finished his education. The Kestenbaums left, leaving all their money and their belongings except for their furniture behind. After having taken the train to Paris, they borrowed money in order to pay for the passage on the SS Normandie to New York.In New York William’s mother did not renew her medical degree, but his father studied to be a doctor again. Unfortunately, he was not as successful as he had been in Vienna. William Kestenbaum attended George Washington high school for a year in order to learn English and then went on to College. After graduating he got a job with Western Electric, which he held until he joined the Navy in 1944. In 1946 he returned to his old job at Western Electric.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with Marianne Ehrlich Ross.

00:00 short description of life story1:50 family background5:35 life in Vienna and awareness of situation in Germany8:00 emigration8:30 religious traditions of family11:10 going back to Vienna13:55 emigration17:55 living in England24:55 antisemitism in Europe26:05 being refugees in England28:05 coming to the US33:45 Israel and Zionism37:20 connections to Austria today38:15 children39:45 speaking German40:30 identity today41:50 opinions on Austria and Europe49:15 final statementMarch 17, 2017Marianne Ehrlich Ross was born on July 8, 1934 in Vienna, Austria, where she grew up in the 2nd District. Because her father had Czech citizenship, her family first fled to Prague, and then they then emigrated to England, where they spent the war years. In 1948 Marianne came to the United States.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with Vera Chapman.

Vera Chapman née Friedmann was born in February 1938 in Vienna, Austria. When she was still a baby her family fled via Aachen to Belgium and from there via Marseille and Egypt to Palestine. She went to the US to attend college.August 29, 2016Austrian Heritage CollectionJewish Hote

AHC interview with Gertrude Lessem.

August 3, 2016Gertrude Lessem née Goldmann was born on April 25th 1919 in Czechoslovakia. She grew up with her three older brothers on her parents’ farm. In 1928 her family moved to Vienna. Though her father worked on a farm in Burgenland the rest of the family lived in Vienna from 1928 until March 1938. After the Anschluss she went to Czechoslovakia and spent some months with her grandparents on the countryside. In 1939 she went to Prague for further education. Since her quota number for an American visa was very high she decided to leave for England in May 1939. She took the train to Belgium from where she took a ship to Folkstown and then to London. In July 1939, she took a boat to Australia where she spent two and a half years in Perth. After she had finally got her American visa, she decided to go to America in the hope to get American visas for her parents in order to get them out of the concentration camps. Her ship to America arrived in May 1941 in San Francisco. She took the train via Chicago to New York. In New York she worked as a nanny from 1941 to 1944. Later, she started working for a housing project in Queens and for clinics, where she took care of children with difficult backgrounds or whose upbringing had been effected by the war. Getrude Lessem studied Psychology and child care.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with Fernanda Steinhauser.

September 6, 2016Fernanda Steinhauser née Jentschmann was born March 7, 1921 in Zurich, Switzerland, where she grew up. Her parents were emigrants form Poland. Fernanda got married to the Austrian refugee Marcel Steinhauser, who had fled the Nazi regime and upon coming to Switzerland was interned in a labor camp for immigrants. In 1951 the couple got affidavits from Marcel Steinhauser's American relatives and immigrated to the US, where they started a restaurant.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with Harry Weinrauch.

September 28, 2016Dr. Harry Weinrauch was born on August 27, 1928 in Vienna, Austria to a Polish mother and a Rumanian father, who was a veteran from the First World War. They felt secure in Vienna until Kristallnacht when a Polish temple close to Harry Weinrauch's school was burned down. He then changed to a Jewish school in Vienna’s "Stadttempel" in Seitenstettengasse. As soon as the invasion of Poland had started in 1939, the Gestapo came to pick up Harry Weinrauch's father. They took him to the Danube river, beat him up and left him for dead until an old Austrian policemen who had found Harry's father heavily injured on the beach of the Danube River brought him to a Jewish hospital. - Due to an affidavit of an American relative, the family got a visa for the United States and permission from the Central Office for Jewish Emigration to emigrate. The Weinrauchs left for Genoa, where a ship brought them to the USA. Here Harry Weinrauch studied at New York University and completed his medical studies at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with Alfred Josef Todrys.

August 22, 2016Alfred Josef Todrys was born on July 9th 1924 in Vienna, Austria. His father was the representative of several bicycle companies. His Hungarian mother owned a meat market in Czernigasse, in the building where they lived. The family fled Austria in October 1938 to Paris. Due to an affidavit from a distant, wealthy relative in New York his father was able to obtain papers necessary for the emigration. They left for the United States in November 1938. Alfred became a US citizen in May 1943, when he joined the US Navy. After the war he started working in his father’s bike business.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with Alice Terner.

November 3, 2016Alice Terner née Katz was born on October 4th 1925 in Vienna. Her father, who was from an orthodox family in Transylvania, owned an animal feed company in Vienna’s 21st District. Her mother was an artist from Vienna. When Alice started to attend school in 1930, her sister was born. Alice's father was arrested under Nazi rule due to false accusations of money shifting, and the Nazi-regime confiscated his company, even though he was a Romanian citizen. While Alice's father was in prison, her mother sent Alice and her sister on a train to Paris, from where they left for the US with affidavits from their aunt. After arriving in New York Alice and her sister lived with their aunt, for whom Alice worked as a maid. In New York City she met her future husband, whom she had already known in Vienna. Consequently her husband joined the Army.Austrian Heritage Collectio

AHC interview with Ludwig Rudel.

00:00 family background and short description of life story13:55 family history24:05 family history and Jewish traditions in the family43:05 school and antisemitism in Vienna46:10 the name Rudel (Hans Ulrich Rudel)54:05 life in Vienna1:01:55 philosophy and history1:09:10 politics and antisemitism in Austria before the war1:12:50 family attitude towards Zionism1:15:55 Anschluss and feelings towards Austria during the war1:20:00 emigration1:34:25 Kristallnacht and war while in the US1:36:55 coming to New York1:40:05 continuing education and way into professional life1:50:45 opinions on Israel and Middle East2:01:00 Austria2:16:05 US politics2:21:30 speaking German2:23:00 Holocaust memorialsMarch 15, 2017Ludwig Rudel was born in Vienna, Austria on May 7, 1930. His father died of pancreatic cancer when Ludwig was still a child, and his brother immigrated to the United States in spring of 1938. Since Ludwig and his mother could not go to the US before October 1938, they fled from Vienna to Italy, where they were hiding for about 6 weeks. From there they emigrated to Switzerland, where they received visas to come to the United States. In October 1938 they departed from Le Havre, France to New York. He continued his education in the States and worked for the US Army. He eventually became a diplomat.Austrian Heritage Collectio