Vienna Voices: A Traveler Listens to the City of Dreams

By Jill Knight Weinberger

A work of creative nonfiction, VIENNA VOICES: A TRAVELER LISTE01 General/trade TO THE CITY OF DREAMS offers a nuanced portrait of the enigmatic “City of Dreams,” whose intellectual and artistic culture reached its height at the end of the nineteenth century, only to be eclipsed in the twentieth by the collapse of the Habsburg empire and the rise of National Socialism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parlor Press, LLC
• Release date: Apr 19, 2006
• ISBN: 9781602358447

Jill Knight Weinberger

Jill Knight Weinberger (PhD, University of Connecticut) is an Associate Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, where she teaches courses in creative writing and American literature. Her travel writing has appeared frequently in the New York Times, Boston Sunday Globe, and Los Angeles Times. In 2000, the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation recognized her writing with a Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism.

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ViennaVoices.jpg

Writing Travel

Series Editor, Jeanne Moskal

The series publishes manuscripts related to the new field of travel studies, including works of original travel writing; editions of out-of-print travel books or previously unpublished travel memoirs; English translations of important travel books in other languages; theoretical and historical treatments of ways in which travel and travel writing engage such questions as religion, nationalism/cosmopolitanism, and empire; gender and sexuality; race, ethnicity, and immigration; and the history of the book, print culture, and translation; biographies of significant travelers or groups of travelers (including but not limited to pilgrims, missionaries, anthropologists, tourists, explorers, immigrants); critical studies of the works of significant travelers or groups of travelers; and pedagogy of travel and travel literature and its place in curricula.

Other Books in the Series

Eating Europe: A Meta-Nonfiction Love Story, Jon Volkmer

Vienna Voices

A Traveler Listens to the City of Dreams

Jill Knight Weinberger

Parlor Press

West Lafayette, Indiana

www.parlorpress.com

Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906

© 2006 by Parlor Press

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weinberger, Jill Knight, 1953-

Vienna voices : a traveler listens to the city of dreams / Jill Knight Weinberger.

p. cm. -- (Writing travel)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-932559-88-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-932559-89-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-932559-90-6 (adobe ebook) 1. Vienna (Austria)--Civilization--20th century. 2. Vienna (Austria)--Intellectual life--20th century. 3. Vienna (Austria)--Description and travel. I. Title. II. Series.

DB851.W5347 2006

943.6’13--dc22

                                                       2006012174

Cover design by David Blakesley.

Printed on acid-free paper.

Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper, cloth and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail [e-mail].

In Memoriam

Marianne Kathryn Knight Farrell

1950 - 2004

For Mikey, whose voice, whose laughter,

Filled our hearts and graced our lives.

May she be at peace in her own city of dreams.

Series Editor’s Preface

Our book series, Writing Travel, seeks to publish the best works in the field of travel studies. This field has been given new urgency by debates about globalization and terrorism, by fresh dialogue between practitioners and scholars of travel writing, and by emerging insights from many disciplines (post-colonial studies, gender studies, literary studies, geography, religious studies, and anthropology) about the ways in which travel and travel writing engage such questions as religion, nationalism/cosmopolitanism, and empire; gender and sexuality; race, ethnicity, and immigration; and the history of the book, print culture, and translation. Our list will include original travel writing; editions of out-of-print travel books or previously unpublished travel memoirs; English translations of important travel books in other languages; biographies of significant travelers or groups of travelers (including but not limited to pilgrims, missionaries, anthropologists, tourists, explorers, immigrants); critical studies of the works of significant travelers or groups of travelers; and pedagogy of travel and travel literature and its place in curricula.

We are pleased to present Jill Knight Weinberger’s Vienna Voices: A Traveler Listens to the City of Dreams as our inaugural volume. Weinberger’s memoir engages one of the pervasive issues in travel writing—the travel writer’s double vision that surveys a new venue of human suffering while delighting in the pleasures of a novel place and culture. Historically, much travel writing has evaded this difficult double vision, choosing either touristic delight or political discussion at the expense of the other. As James Buzard notes in The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to Culture 1800–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), the erasure of politics from popular tourism was one of the foundational moves of nineteenth-century British publisher John Murray, a founder of the travel-guide-book industry and the predecessor of Baedeker and other popular guides. Murray incorporated many memorable passages from Lord Byron’s poetry into his guidebooks, but strategically omitted Byron’s passages decrying political oppression or advocating causes such as Italian unification. Buzard concludes that Murray thus produced for his reader-travelers the frisson of Byronic passion without the worrisome pangs of conscience that direct political allusion would prompt. This divorce of delight from political awareness remains a staple of the present-day travel industry of much travel writing.

Weinberger writes a different kind of travel book. The daughter-in-law of Holocaust-era exiles from Vienna, she recounts her search for the specifics of her adopted family’s dispossession and murder, including the bureaucratic paper trail documenting the Aryanization of Wilhelm Weinberger’s hardware and household-goods stores and the stamp collection of a fledgling philatelist who never got to grow up. Countering the trend described by Buzard, Weinberger directly engages the contradictions created by the delights of the city—its coffee houses, architecture, and musical heritage—and the pervasive awareness that the Austrians voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to Nazi Germany. Characteristically, she gives funny advice about getting the attention of a busy Viennese waiter while noting that her fellow customers in the coffee house are children of those Austrian voters. With bravery, subtlety and humor, she anatomizes for her reader Viennese charm and Viennese guilt. Moreover, Weinberger opens up the possibilities of her own threshold position as outsider, as not-quite tourist in Vienna, as one who acquired the German language by study among its native speakers, and as a child of Yankee Protestants married into a Jewish family, to create a window into the outsider position of the Viennese Jews whose psyches and histories she seeks to understand.

This memoir is especially timely as an act of compassion and preservation in these days when the last survivors of the Holocaust are dying. It will appeal to armchair travelers and to students of travel literature, Austrian culture, and Judaic studies, as well as to anyone interested in the intricacies of remembering historical and family trauma.

—Jeanne Moskal

Series Editor, Writing Travel

Preface

I am tempted to begin by suggesting what Vienna Voices: A Traveler Listens to the City of Dreams is not. It is not a book about the Holocaust, or a history of the Jews of Vienna. It is not a family history, in the conventional sense, nor is it a travel guidebook. And yet, it contains elements of all these.

My aim in writing Vienna Voices was to present the city through my particular set of lenses, which has, I readily admit, been tinted by long acquaintance and by my slow absorption of fact, images, and experiences over the past twenty years. I have traveled to Vienna often during that time, both alone and with my husband, G. J., whose parents were born there and then forced to leave when Hitler came to power in 1938. The living memories of these loved ones are never far from consciousness whenever I travel to Vienna and whenever I look back on my time there.

I have toured the palaces and cathedrals of this handsome city, wandered its medieval streets and through its neighborhoods, dallied in its coffeehouses and pastry shops, followed its footpaths through legendary woods. But I have learned as much about this place through listening, through filtering the city’s clamor, the Viennese speech, its whispers, songs, poetry, and theatre into some level of understanding. Perhaps this book, then, is best described as kaleidoscopic, in that it brings together fragments of Vienna, bits and pieces that add up to a kind of portrait of a place, one that suggests not a single, unified image, but rather one that is richly complex, layered, ambiguous. The Vienna of popular imagination, the elegant city of waltzes and choir boys and dancing white horses, does indeed exist, but no one really lives there except the most willfully sentimental of foreign visitors, and surely even they cannot sustain the illusion for more than a few days. A far more interesting Vienna, darker and less nostalgic, is the one with which I have become acquainted. It is a place of which I have grown fond, in spite of myself, in spite of what I think I know about its character. And that is the Vienna, so often called the city of dreams, I have attempted to render in this book.

Acknowledgments

I am profoundly grateful to the many people, both in Vienna and closer to home, who supported my efforts throughout the research and writing processes. These include those who assisted me in obtaining Weinberger family, school, and business records: Luise Schuster of the Wiener Handelsakademie, Mag. Rita Tezzele of the Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Mr. Lambert Schön of the War Archives Sections of the Österreichischer Staatsarchiv, Dr. Gerda Barth of the city of Vienna Plakatsammlung, and the staffs of the Waltergasse and Albertgasse Realschulen and the Kultusgemeindearchiv. In addition, I thank the able librarians of the University of Vienna, the Nationalbibliothek, the Theresianum, and Central Connecticut State University for their help in locating and retrieving old newspapers and periodicals. For giving generously of their time and expertise, I thank Hebe Jeffries, Regina Anzenberger, and Mag. Consul Gertrud Tuchhammer. Special thanks go to Josef Köber of the Kronen-Zeitung for allowing me to adapt an anecdote from his book, Weanerisch; Simone Furtlehner of the Hundertwasser Archives, who kindly facilitated permission to reprint the artist’s statement that appears in Chapter Seven; and Susan Widmer of the Vanderbilt University Library for her help in dating Ernst Waldinger’s Ich bin ein Sohn der deutschen Sprache. Thanks, too, to several of Vienna’s tour guides, whose knowledge of and passion for the city are always inspiring: Elisabeth-Joe Harriet, Maria Husa, Brigitte Timmermann, Barbara Timmermann, and Eleonore Neubacher.

My time in Vienna—several extended stays over the past two years while organizing and writing and thinking about this book—was enriched by pleasant evenings spent with Peter Schwarz and Dorith Salvarani-Drill and their son, Emanuel, and with our cousins, Louis and Marion Mieses. To our Vienna landlords, Alfred and Barbara Punzet-Krammer, we owe a million thanks for providing us a home away from home on Darwingasse and for their kindly interest in our comfort and well-being. But among our Vienna debts, the greatest is owed to Eva and Pauli Wertheimer and their son, Patrick, who welcomed us, fed us, introduced us to their friends, and with whom we forged a renewed family bond.

Work on Vienna Voices would not have been possible without the support of Central Connecticut State University, which granted me a sabbatical leave during the 2003–04 academic year and additional professional leave. I thank also those administrators and faculty who awarded me two CSU-AAUP research grants (2002, 2003). My colleagues in the English Department generously covered my teaching, advising and committee assignments during my absence. Special thanks to Gilbert Gigliotti, Christine Doyle, Leyla Zidani-Eroglu, Mary Anne Nunn, Matt Ciscel, Steven Cohen, Jeff Partridge, and Cheryl Chatfield.

My friends Barbara Baker and Jane Hikel traveled all the way to Vienna to meet me for coffee, and I thank them for many lovely hours walking and talking and sampling the pastry. To Virginia Tubeck-Drozd, who did not travel to Vienna, heartfelt thanks for the sound and supportive commentary over coffee at our local Starbucks. I wish also to thank Katharine Sands of the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, who listened to my first thoughts on this project and suggested to me the title, Vienna Voices. My editor, Jeanne Moskal, and publisher, David Blakesley of Parlor Press, proved both wonderfully professional and collegial, as they charted a steady and enthusiastic course from proposal to book.

I hardly know how to thank all the family and friends who contributed documents, stories, memories, photographs, and good conversation to the making of Vienna Voices: Helly Kohn, Lisl Lederer, Gerty Schaier, Herta Schwarz, Didi Zwirn, Ernst and Irene Wiesner, and Gaye Wiesner. I can only hope this book, which touches on their lives as well as my own, honors them as it means to do.

Finally, two special men in my life made incalculable contributions to my work. Despite his ill health, and at a time of life when he should be excused from having to revisit the painful past, my father-in-law, Ludwig Weinberger, generously shared with me his memories and knowledge of Vienna, as well as his insights into the city of his birth. He gladly answered questions both intrusive and trivial, strove in every way to be helpful, and gave Vienna Voices his blessing. Sadly, he passed away in August, 2005, while the manuscript was being prepared for publication. My husband, G. J., assisted me in all practical aspects of the work, read every word—indeed, listened to every word—of the manuscript, collaborated on translations, served as interpreter, helped with the research, and traveled with me to Vienna when he surely would have preferred new destinations.

And, in the darkest of hours, he held out the warmest and steadiest of hands.

A note on translations: unless otherwise indicated, translations of primary documents and literature were made by G. J. Weinberger and me. G. J. was responsible for providing a rough, literal translation from German into English, which I then polished. A process of negotiation routinely ensued, as we consulted our dictionaries or sought outside advice, debated the subtleties of word choice and analyzed tone until we were both satisfied with sound and sense. I, however, take full responsibility for any infelicities or mistakes that readers may find.

J.K.W.

Contents

Series Editor’s Preface

Preface

1 Vienna Faces

2 German Is the Language of Liebe (Love!)

3 By Bim

4 From Favoriten to Döbling: Wilhelm’s Vienna Journey

5 The True Lover of Books

6 Searching for Schnitzler

7 Schöne Post

8 Grace Notes

9 The Anschluss and After

10 City of the Dead

11 Vienna Voices

Notes

Works Cited

About the Author

1 Vienna Faces

Portrait of the Writer as a Thirteen-Year-Old

Growing up in Connecticut, I had only the slightest knowledge about Vienna, and most of it deriving from an album of Strauss waltzes sent to my parents by the Columbia Record Club because my mother forgot to mail in the alternative request for Tony Bennett or Dean Martin. The record wound up in my room and I played it until tics developed in The Emperor’s Waltz and Tales from the Vienna Woods. The music captivated me, as it does still, but I do think this was a little strange for a thirteen-year-old circa 1966, and so did my older sister and younger brother, who liked nothing better than to find me conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in my silent room, arms waving about, big clunky earphones plastered to my head. That is now family lore and I am stuck with it.

And for a long time I was stuck with the album cover image of Vienna—the gilded figure of Johann Strauss, Junior playing his violin superimposed on a wide angle shot of the city, all palaces and cathedral spires. After my marriage, then, I had everything to learn, starting with the notion that Vienna was no city of waltzes for the Weinberger family and no Strauss soundtrack accompanies their story.

Kaffee Klatsch

On a recent afternoon at our home in Connecticut, G. J. and I hosted a small party of old folks—old Viennese folks. All had been refugees who by various means, including sheer luck, survived the journey in the late 1930s from their birthplace, Vienna, to whatever safe havens in the world they, as Jews, could find: Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Curaçao. All eventually emigrated to the United States, settling in and around New York City.

It is a gathering dominated by the German language, specifically the funny and lovely-sounding Viennese dialect, and by one inescapable and inexhaustible subject: their identities as Jews, as Americans, as Viennese, as survivors. It is a gathering and a conversation familiar to me, perhaps incongruously, as the youngest person present, the non-Jew, the non-German speaker, the deeply-rooted New Englander. But when I married Guillermo J. Weinberger, I took my place at the table and listened. What I have heard over the past twenty-three years from this dwindling community of exiles are stories that have chilled my blood and left me shaken, that have enlarged my world and forced me to confront my ignorance. And they have contributed, no doubt, to my evolving Weltanschauung, my way of looking at the world.

G. J. has heard their stories all his life, and so today is a trifle bored, wants his dessert and coffee while the old folks are still nattering away over their stuffed chicken breasts and mesclun salad.

I don’t know what it is I’m eating, Jill, but it’s very good, says Helly, pronouncing my name, as they all do, Jeel. I know what she’s saying: this is no spread, no lavish array of cold meats and salads and bagels and rye and liptauer cheese that is usually brought forth on such occasions. Allowances, however, are made for the American daughter-in-law who is a sweet girl and who tries so hard to please.

On this day, the discussion turns to the term Holocaust survivor. I bring up the subject. There is a woman who lives at my father-in-law Ludwig’s retirement home, Summerwood, who introduces herself as a Holocaust survivor, as if no other introductory phrases were necessary. When she did it to me, it felt, somehow, like a rebuke. Had her Jewish radar informed her I was no Jew and had she therefore felt compelled to remind me of the Holocaust, lest I forget? Ludwig’s friend, Lisl, also a resident at Summerwood, says that isn’t it, that she says it to everyone. When Lisl pressed her for details one day, it turned out she had not been imprisoned in any of the camps, but that she had been, simply, a refugee from Germany.

"But that doesn’t mean she isn’t entitled to call herself a Holocaust survivor, right? I ask. I’m puzzled by this periodic discussion over who is and who is not a survivor."

You are all survivors, I argue. Just because you weren’t in the camps doesn’t mean you aren’t victims of the Holocaust.

That sets off a minor ruckus. All my guests—Ludwig, Helly, Lisl, and Gerty—insist upon the special status of concentration camp survivors.

We are, Lisl says, merely refugees.

Flüchtlinge

Regina Anzenberger, who runs a photographic agency in Vienna, invited me recently to take a look at an exhibit in her small gallery—two dozen or so black and white shots of Chechnya taken by one of her photographers just back from that forlorn place. We seem only to hear of Chechen rebels, not refugees, but here they are, lining the walls like grim shadows.

I, an American-born woman, do not know what it is to be a refugee. As a child growing up in rural Connecticut, I doubt I ever heard the word, unless it was embedded in some schoolroom lesson about the Statue of Liberty and Emma Lazarus’s poem. We had no refugees that I knew of in my small hometown, Granby. Immigrants, yes: the occasional Polish or French-Canadian family would move to town, usually into some rundown property they would attempt to brighten with a few potted geraniums or a front yard vegetable garden. I thought no more about this matter than that the school bus route would be longer for having to stop for the new batch of kids, who sometimes seemed a little paler than the rest of us.

I look up the German word for refugee: der Flüchtling. I don’t think I have ever heard it aloud from any of the old German speakers of my acquaintance. Ludwig always uses the English word, pronouncing refugee with a soft shhhee sound.

When I say—attempt to say—Flüchtling, I hear its relationship to a more familiar German noun, Flug, or flight. Flug is a word I know well: the words for airplane (Flugzeug) and airport (Flughafen) and excursion (Ausflug) and all sorts of travel-related terms are built around it, and thus I encounter it frequently when G. J. and I travel to Austria and Germany. It has no dark connotation for me, rather the opposite—travels, journeys, holidays. But I learn from my Oxford Duden German Dictionary that a second way of translating the English flight is die Flucht, but the sense of this word is closer to fleeing, as in, say, the Jews’ flight from Egypt in Biblical times. Jewish history is a record of such flights: from Pharaohs, Catholic monarchs and their inquisitors, Cossacks, village mobs, Nazis.

Ludwig and his friends Lisl, Helly, and Gerty fled Vienna. They fled because they had to; because Hitler found in them highly marketable scapegoats around whom to consolidate his power; because life became unbearable in the city of their birth; because their Viennese, that is, Christian, neighbors vigorously, and often maliciously, demanded they go. Helly, in fact, was one of those forced from her apartment in Ottakring to scrub the street, while the good burghers watched, some silently, some not.

But they had to be nimble of mind as well as body in order to face the present reality and look into the grim future. And they were courageous enough to see no future and prescient enough to see only a short-lived