Back to the Future

 

“Is this your first time in Austria? 

“No, my second … I was born here”.

That was a frequent Q & A exchange as I met various government officials and colleagues of our host. But what drew me back now, and why were so many Austrians eager to meet me? 

My father and me

Braunau DP camp 

Austria 1947

Chapter I

The story begins one evening at the turn of the 21st Century when my father was sitting in his den exchanging email jokes with friends on his internet enabled dial-up device, a.k.a., WebTV. Out of the blue, he received an email from Karl Ramsmaier, an Austrian academic in the city of Steyr researching history of forced labor from the notorious concentration camp, KZ Mauthausen. Steyr was home to one of Mauthausen’s complex of forty-nine labor sub-camps and where my father tasted freedom for the first time after his years of Nazi imprisonment. US forces liberated the camp in May 1945. 

 

Karl and his wife Woltraud

While conducting his research in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum archives, Karl came across photos my father took following liberation and wanted to connect for more info. 

My dad could NOT believe that someone from across the world found him through that little WebTV set top box! Being too excited to handle the discussions, he handed the mission over to me. That began more than twenty years of cyber exchanges with Karl, and more recently with Martin Hagmayr, a young historian and museum curator from Steyr.  

Martin and I reviewing additional photos at my home 

during his research visit to Boston, Washington, and NY last fall. 

The Leica camera my dad used during his documentation of life in the post war Displaced Persons camps rests on the table.

Culling from my family’s archive, I’ve supplied Martin with a host of additional images, documents, and answers to a long list of questions about my parents’ experiences. He was happy to report that with support of the Austrian government, construction is underway for a Learning Center in the former Lenort Synagogue of Steyr, the synagogue my father helped re-establish after the war. The Center will be dedicated to never forgetting the atrocities of the Holocaust and to preventing fascism from ever creeping back into the country.

    The Austrian government has a checkered past during the Holocaust, so this is huge. Initially it claimed that Anschluss, Nazi Germany’s 1938 annexation, indicated Austrians, not Jews, were the first victims. However, images of über enthusiastic ‘seig heiling’ crowds welcoming Der Führer as he triumphantly strode down Vienna’s boulevards in his Mercedes staff car debunks that version of history. 

    The Center, currently on schedule for an official opening in early 2027, will also be home for a permanent exhibition of Jewish life in Steyr. My dad’s photos will be prominently featured. 

In May of this year the official announcement of the Center took place. Knowing that it had government backing, the governor of Upper Austria and the Mayor of Steyr wanted to be at the press conference where Martin Hagmayr presented the plan for creating the Learning Center.  

In Martin's presentation he shows a 1946 image of the Lenort Synagogue
with some of the group members working to re-establish it after the war.
My father is third from the left.

As the son of a survivor of the Mauthausen camp and a contributor of archival material, I was invited to participate in the official broadcast announcements and speak about my father. They all considered me a celebrity!  

Martin, me, Governor of Upper Austria Thomas Stelzer, and Steyr Mayor Markus Vogl at the press conference. Simultaneous German translation was provided for me. In the foreground is a Hanukkah menorah crafted by my father which my family was donating to the Center's exhibit.

That’s why I am here now.

But that’s hardly the only reason I made the journey. More of that story will unfold in Chapter II.

Stay tuned ……