AHC interview with Eric Ungar.

Abstract

0:00:25-0:03:22 School years in Vienna0:03:24-0:05:09, 0:41:16-0:45:27 Consequences of the “Anschluss” for the family0:05:34-0:08:09 Getting documents for the emigration and leaving Vienna0:08:14-0:10:45 Emigration from Vienna to St. Louis and arrival there0:10:48-0:12:17 Education in St. Louis0:12:17-0:15:34 Time in the military0:15:35-0:17:45 Career0:17:37-0:21:47 Paternal and maternal grandparents0:22:25-0:26:12 Parents’ professional life0:26:15-0:29:15 Parental home in Vienna and in the USA0:30:43-0:33:43 Role of religion0:39:00-0:41:13 Anti-Semitism after the “Anschluss”0:47:22-0:48:31, 0:53:55-0:55:18 Contact with family members after the emigration 0:48:40-0:49:50 Anti-Semitism in the American army0:49:56-0:53:34 Sentiments towards the German population during his time in the army0:55:46-0:56:28 Attitude towards the State of Israel0:57:07-1:00:13 Connections to Austria today1:00:19-1:02:27 Austria’s way of dealing with its past1:02:33-1:03:22 Political situation in America today1:03:26-1:06:44 Children’s and grandchildren’s relation to their Austrian heritageOctober 26, 2017Eric Ungar was born on November 12, 1926 in Vienna, Austria, where he grew up in the second district. He lived with his parents (Sabina née Schlesinger and Isidor Ungar), his younger brother Fritz Carl Ungar (born on April 3, 1931) and a maid in an apartment on Novaragasse 38. He went to elementary school and high school in Vienna until the “Anschluss” when he had to change to a middle school and eventually quit going to school. Shortly before their emigration, the family moved to an apartment on Fleischmarkt in the 1st district, close to Isidor Ungar’s department store, because he believed it to be safer in an area with fewer Jews.The family got an affidavit from a stranger, whom Hilde Feuerstein (Eric Ungar’s maternal aunt) in the United States had met at the synagogue. The family managed to go to Holland by train, just shortly before they would have had to show up at an “Umschlagplatz”. On October 23, 1939 they went to New York on the ship "Westernland", from the Holland-America line, and they arrived on November 5, 1939. From New York they took a train to St. Louis, Missouri.Eric Ungar continued his education in St. Louis and got a scholarship for the Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied for one year before he voluntarily joined the military when he was 18 years old. During his time in the army he was stationed in Belgium and Germany for about three years and worked on the repatriation of American soldiers. After he graduated from Washington University and married in 1951, he worked and continued his studies in Albuquerque until 1953 before he got his doctorate from New York University in 1958. He then settled in Newton, MA.Austrian Heritage Collectio