Torn from Life - the Fate of Austrian Jews after the Anschluss in 1938

After the Anschluss, a policy of forced emigration was imposed on the Jews of Austria.  Simultaneously, many Jews sought to leave the country.  In light of the fact that many Jews made a living in trade, clerical work and the legal profession, the Jewish community decided to open vocational training centers where those hoping to emigrate could acquire new skills that would serve them wherever they chose to go.

Margit and Georg Weiner lived in Vienna with their two daughters, Ruth and Eva. After the Anschluss, Margit sent her daughters to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) with the Youth Aliyah, intending to follow them with her mother, Helena, but after the November Pogrom of 1938, their "Certificates" were taken away from them and they found themselves trapped in Vienna with no way out.   Approximately two years later, Margit and Helena escaped Vienna for Shanghai.

Susanna Schick was 14 years old when she and her fellow Hashomer Hatzair youth movement members in Vienna embarked on a journey along the Danube towards the Black Sea, in order to reach Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) via Turkey. Detained in Yugoslavia, her journey lasted approximately 18 months.

Hans Lebel, born in Mödling, Lower Austria, met his wife, Karla, a lawyer, before the War. The couple’s life was upended following the Anschluss in March 1938 and the infamous November 1938 Pogrom in Germany and Austria. These events prompted Hans and Karla's escape to Mandatory Palestine in 1939. Tragically, their parents did not have the same opportunity. Irina Lebel died in Vienna before the Holocaust, while Isidor Lebel, Hans's father, was murdered in Treblinka. Karla’s mother, Rosa Columbus, was deported to Bergen-Belsen and fortunately was released and able to reunite with her family in Israel. Once there, she met her granddaughter Michaela, who was born in 1943.