Jan 15, 2025 3 min read faith practice

What We Inherit

Facing history - in Vienna and in my own family.

I went to Europe with my family for many reasons, but mostly to reconnect with my heritage. My father was born in Vienna in 1922, and died when I was 17. I never really understood his story.

My father as a child, with both his parents.

My father was born in Vienna in 1922. His mother was Jewish and his father was not. His father died when he was six years old, and his mother went on the road with her singing group to make a living. He was mostly raised by his grandmother.

After Hitler annexed Austria, my father and his family escaped to Argentina. Later, he moved to the United States. By the time I was born, he had buried a lot of his past. I had no idea he had any Jewish heritage until after he died.

My father was a German professor. He took me to Europe two times on research trips. He never took me to Vienna, but I am so glad I finally took myself and my own family. Vienna a beautiful city that seems to be facing its history.

Across the street from the place I think was my father's home is now a park named for a synagogue.

The synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht in November 1938. The magic of Google Translate helped me understand the sign on the street explaining its story. ("Submarines" was a nickname for those who hid and saved Jewish people.)

My father's father was an opera singer. In the span of a decade, my grandmother went from watching her husband perform at Vienna's Opera House to fleeing for her life.

The Opera House has an exhibit about one of its former members who played there for 57 years (!) before Hitler took power. Afterwards, as the sign says, he was confronted and told his "days were numbered." Tides can turn quickly.

Detail from the exhibit at the Vienna Opera House.

To stand at the graves of my ancestors buried in the Jewish section of Vienna's Central Cemetery - a cemetery built to be interfaith, a place where all humans could find eternal rest - was pretty incredible.