It was the best of cities, it was the worst of cities. Dickens never said that, but he could have, and one of the cities he could have described that way was Vienna during the first half of the 20th century. Last night, Professor Marsha Rozenblit of the University of Maryland gave a Zoom presentation about the 20th century Jewish history of Vienna for the Haberman Institute of Jewish Studies. I introduced Marsha, whom I have know for quite some time, to our audience of about 300.

The Haberman Institute is celebrating its 40th year of providing adult educational programs, but Marsha has us beat. She is now in her 45th year of teaching at Maryland; she joined the faculty in 1978. (That last clause was redundant.)

Vienna was, of course, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I, a large entity that included today’s Austria and Hungary, as well as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, parts of Poland and Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, the entire former Yugoslavia and, I am sure, places I am forgetting. It was a multi-ethnic, and multi-linguistic as you can get. When my father’s mother lived in Lviv (Lvov, Lemberg), she lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When my mother’s maternal grandparents, with their Polish last name, lived in Vienna, they obviously did the same.

There were many Jews in this Hapsburg Empire and from the 1860s, they had full and equal rights, including the rights to move anywhere they wanted within the Empire. Many chose to move to Vienna, which had, prior to some time in the mid-19th century been off limits to all Jews, but for the very wealthy.

By the time the 20th century arrived, there were about 200,000 Jews living in Vienna, having moved there from all parts of the Empire. Similar, even larger migrations, had occurred to Budapest and to the Prussian capital of Berlin. It was in cities like these that many Jews became “Europeans” – soaking up and contributing to general European culture and life. So different from the Jews of the Russian empire, who were by and large isolated from the larger urban concentrations of that society.

The Jews were by and large in different occupations than the non-Jewish Viennese. They were much more concentrated in mercantile and clerical activities than the others, who were more engaged in factory jobs and other jobs that required physical exertion. A minority of Jews were factory owners or wealthy businessmen, and relatively few were in the civil service.

There was a lot of antisemitism in Vienna, with the largest party, the Christian [Somethings] being quite antisemitic, as was the long time mayor, Karl Lueger. But, Marsha said, this really didn’t affect the Jews much, because the authority of the city government was limited, and the government of the Empire, led by Franz Josef II for over [ ] years made sure that all minorities in the Empire were protected. The Jews loved the Emperor, she said, and that reminded me of what I heard a number of times from my grandmother – “Franz Josef – he was a good emperor”.

Everything changed after World War I, when Austria, being on the losing side, lost its empire and was suddenly a much smaller country with a much too big capital. Economic conditions were not good through the 1920s, and were even worse in the 1930s, and the Jews suffered along with others. Antisemitism grew during this period, and when Hitler and the Nazis finally moved into Austria in 1938, he was greeted by about one million cheering Austrians, and the Jews were soon the target of everything bad in the Nazi quiver.

But in advance of, and for a time after, the Anschluss (as the incorporation of Austria into Germany is termed), the Jews could leave Vienna, and almost 2/3 of them did. Some of them escaped to places where they were beyond Nazi reach (Great Britain, the U.S., etc.), but others flew to Holland, France, Belgium and other countries, where they soon caught in the Nazi web. In all, about 1/2 of the Jews who were or had been living in Vienna were killed, and about 1/2 su

And, as to the one-two-three, last night the name Richard Strauss did not come up. But it’s in the back of my mind (one-two-three) whenever I think (one-two-three) of (one-two-three) Vienna. Sing along with me: The Blue Danube Waltz, by Strauss, by Strauss…..