The City Without Jews: Life and Death in Nazi Vienna
By Douglas Smith
FSG, 560 pages, $37

Several years ago, the historian Douglas Smith, who has won wide recognition for his several books on modern Russia, turned his attention to Vienna and its Jewish community during the rise and fall of the Third Reich. During his research, he discovered the recently published diary and letters of Mignon Langnas (née Rottenberg), one of the few Jews who remained and survived in Vienna under Nazi rule. Gripped by Langnas’ experience of events we have difficulty even now of fully grasping, Smith decided to center his book on this remarkable woman.

It was a brilliant choice: Smith’s new book, The City Without Jews: Life and Death in Nazi Vienna, seamlessly weaves Langnas’ story with the wider account of how Vienna, home to the largest Jewish population of any city in the German-speaking world with nearly 200,000 inhabitants, was declared by Nazi officials, with only slight exaggeration, as Judenrein.

From its fin-de-siècle brilliance in the late 1800s to its fin-des-juifs darkness in the mid-1930s, Vienna was home to both illustrious Jews like Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler as well as notorious antisemites like the influential politician Georg von Schönerer and Karl Lueger, the city’s mayor from 1897 to his death in 1910. But antisemitism was a worldview that extended far beyond a political elite. Smith underscores the countless acts of spontaneous antisemitism that erupted in Vienna following the 1938 Anschluss, when Jews were forced to scrub anti-Nazi graffiti from sidewalks and carry pro-Nazi placards. The American journalist and historian William Shirer, on a visit to the city, reported that the Viennese, “usually so soft and sentimental, were behaving worse than the Germans, especially towards Jews.”

Of course, what followed was unspeakably worse. The rapid and rapacious process of Aryanization by the Viennese shocked even German Nazi officials, who hurriedly issued a series of laws and warnings against “wild Aryanization.” The lurid logic of Aryanization, in turn, beggared the Jewish community, making the resolution of the “Jewish question” even more imperative for the Third Reich.

Adolph Eichmann, recently arrived in Vienna, created the Central Office for Jewish Emigration and placed Josef Löwenherz, the director of the Viennese Jewish Community, at its head. Though Löwenherz’s actions were condemned by some survivors after the war, Smith echoes the Holocaust scholar Doron Rabinovici’s conclusion that, while Löwenherz was “co-opted” by the Nazi state, he nevertheless acted courageously in impossible circumstances, saving the lives of tens of thousands of Viennese Jews.

Smith’s account of the evolution of the Final Solution in Vienna, based on an impressive familiarity with primary and secondary sources, manages to be both cogent and comprehensive. What makes his narrative truly compelling, though, is how well he weaves the life of Mignon Langnas into the wider story. Upon settling in Vienna, her family quickly learned German, thoroughly immersed themselves in the literary culture and, despite recurring spasms of antisemitism, thought of Vienna as their home. As Smith observes, the parents’ very choice of “Mignon” as their daughter’s German name, rather than her Hebrew name of Mamcze, signaled their embrace of Viennese Kultur. In 1928, the young woman married Leon Langnas, also a Polish immigrant with whom she had two children, Georg and Manuela. Though they struggled financially, they had no reason to believe that their lives, along with their extended families, would not continue to improve.

Of course, this belief was shattered by the birth of the Third Reich and death of the Austrian Republic. As the prospect of annexation by Nazi Germany loomed, the deep reserves of Austrian antisemitism seeped then burst into public life. In Vienna, the violence of Kristallnacht was far greater and gruesome than in Germany, with dozens of synagogues and thousands of Jewish businesses destroyed, several thousand Jewish residents arrested, and at least 27 Jews murdered and dozens more who took their own lives. As Joachim Fest, a biographer of Hitler, concluded, Kristallnacht was “successful only in Vienna.”

This event persuaded the Langnas family that they had to leave. While fires lit the streets along which roving bands sought out Jews, SS officers came to the Langnas apartment to arrest Leon. He succeeded to hide that night and, at Mignon’s urging, eventually made his way to New York after nearly a year of travails and travels. Mignon then managed the Herculean task of completing the paperwork for the children, who joined Leon in 1940, but refused to leave her parents who could not secure the necessary money and visa.

At this point, alone and anguished, Mignon began the journal that serves as Smith’s window into her life. Over the next four years, what remained of her family, friends, and neighbors were gradually “extracted” — the term of art for the round-up and deportation of Jews by either the SS or Jewish “stewards” employed by the Central Office. Though both of her ailing parents died, Mignon managed to survive through pure luck and sheer will. She leapt at the chance to train as a nurse, a position that not only helped save her from the relentless wave of extractions, but no doubt helped save the lives of many of her patients.

During the final months of the war, when she worked twelve-hour shifts at the Children’s Hospital and Vienna was pounded daily by Allied air strikes, Mignon adopted a mantra: “Don’t think — just don’t think.” If she did allow herself a thought, it was that she wanted to live and see her husband and own children. When the city was liberated in April 1945, slightly more than 5,000 Jews — either employed by the Central Office or married to gentiles — had survived including Mignon, who had lost more than fifty family members. But there was an insurmountable distance between survival and revival.

In June 1946, Mignon arrived in the port of New York City and rejoined her family. Yet she had become a stranger to them — after six years in the US, the children had forgotten not just their German, but mostly their mother as well, and they had become strangers to one another. As she wrote to a cousin, “We are all broken people and nothing happy or bright can resonate in us anymore. I have to cry so much.”

Three years later, Mignon, ill and unable to leave her bed, was admitted to Gotham Hospital where she died a few weeks later. Yet thanks to Douglas Smith’s masterful account, it is not just the horrors Mignon experienced but also the humanity she embodied that will continue to resonate with the reader.

The post They settled in a city where 200,000 Jews thrived. After Kristallnacht, her family fled and she stayed behind. appeared first on The Forward.

It was, I think, some small measure of divine consolation that the most dispersed minority on the planet got a little game to bring us back together. Yes, I’m talking about Jewish geography — that special small-talk ritual that often follows when two Jews meet for the first time.

It’s a precious thing, finding out that the stranger from across the country is in fact related to your old day-school pal…or went to camp with his sister…or dunked on him one time in a gap-year program basketball tournament. These connections, however stretched, mark our closeness, placing us somewhere on a giant tree of shared Jewish ancestry that, presumably, begins at Sinai.

But Jewish geography never played that way for me. My dad converted — no Jewish friends or family there — and my mom’s relatives were non-observant, leaving me with dangerously few character references outside of my synagogue and day school class. We didn’t do Pesach programs or Camp Ramah — we didn’t even shul-hop. So on NCSY Shabbatons or at Hillel dinners, when everyone else knew someone who knew someone, I didn’t. Like the converts of the biblical desert, I felt I’d always be pitching my tent on the fringes.

Everything changed one day earlier this year when, doomscrolling on X, I came across a post from a user with my last name. I’ve never met another Keene I wasn’t related to, so I followed my curiosity to her profile. Her bio (it’s since changed) read something like: “Best-selling author. Feminist. Jew.” Gobsmacked, I followed her.

A few minutes later, a message arrived. “Holy s—,” Meg wrote, “are we the only two Jews on earth with the last name Keene?” I guess writing for a Jewish publication gave me away. Over DMs, she told me she lived with her husband and two kids in the Bay Area; like my dad, she had converted from Christianity. Her Keene ancestors hailed from the antebellum South; I told her mine fought for the North. We soon pieced together that we were both descended from Mayflower folks — believe it or not, the same one.

At some point, we realized this was the least Jewish game of Jewish geography that’s ever been played. Of course, playing at all was new for both of us. “Because talking about being a convert is discouraged,” Meg said, “and honestly because most people who talk about being converts converted 5 minutes ago, not 20 years, I end up just sitting quietly during Jewish geography convos. I find it interesting that people generally don’t notice.”

A few days later, we picked up the conversation over the phone, when I learned that she made her name writing about wedding planning but had since pivoted to fiction. She’d finished a novel — but was having trouble getting it out, she said, because her characters had been deemed too Jewish by publishers. (Not long after our call, Cousin Meg launched her own imprint, Meg Keene Books, to take the Big Five head on.)

Still, not all the Jewish Keenes were accounted for. A few months later, Meg told me she’d found another. Andrew Keene lives in Tel Aviv, and — here’s a real twist — he didn’t convert. Instead, Andrew told me over LinkedIn this week, his ancestors were Cohens who changed their name. I’d met Kanes, Kahns and Katzes who were at one point Cohens, but never Keenes. Well, unless I counted myself — after all, Cohen is my mother’s maiden name.

Andrew, whose family hails from Wisconsin, said he wasn’t sure how Cohen had become Keene, or why. “But I do know my grandfather had an uncle, Louis Cohen.” Funny he should say so: I’m named after one. His Louis Cohen worked for Pabst Brewing; mine was a dentist. Andrew’s visiting LA next month, and we’re trying to drag Meg down here for a Jewish Keene summit.

I should caveat that my newfound Jewish geography has come at a price. There had been one nice thing about being the sole Jewish Keene family, which was the illusion of brand control. I grew up believing that whatever name recognition Jewish Keenes achieved would begin with our family of five — what could be, unburdened by what has been. Then, this week, I got a text I had never received before: Are you related to Meg Keene? 

The answer’s kind of a long story, but it dates back to Sinai.

The post Could a convert’s kid play Jewish geography? appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — President Isaac Herzog called leaders of Jerusalem’s Kol HaNeshama Reform congregation on the eve of the Sukkot holiday to express solidarity following a string of attacks against the synagogue and took the matter up with Israel Police, his office told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Sunday.

The call came days after Jerusalem police arrested three minors suspected of involvement in a series of incidents targeting the congregation over recent weeks, including break-ins, vandalism and harassment.

Herzog expressed his “solidarity and support” for the congregation and stressed “the utmost importance of freedom of worship for all in Israel,” according to his office.

Oded Mazor, Kol HaNeshama’s leading rabbi, told JTA that Herzog spoke Friday with him and the congregation’s executive director, Anna Astmaker, describing Kol HaNeshama as “an important and valued Jerusalem institution.”

Herzog “condemned the attacks and the harassment of the community,” Mazor said and welcomed the arrests.

“We thanked him warmly for the call, for his concern and appreciation, and invited him to visit our sukkah during the holiday,” Mazor said.

Herzog called Mazor again on Sunday after speaking with Jerusalem’s police commander, saying police were taking the investigation “very seriously” and examining whether someone else was behind the youths’ actions, Mazor said. Herzog’s office confirmed the follow-up call.

Police said the minors were suspected of property damage and “insult to religion,” and said they would ask a court to extend their detention, Channel 13 reported.

In August, vandals broke into the synagogue, smashed a window and tore down a Pride flag. Weeks later, on Rosh Hashanah, youths threw eggs at worshippers arriving for services after first approaching members of the congregation with comments that Debi Shoua Haim, one of Kol HaNeshama’s rabbis, said were “homophobic and bordered on harassment.”

Around Yom Kippur, the synagogue was targeted three more times. Plates and other breakable objects were thrown through a window. An intruder later broke in and tore down a Pride flag and a rainbow-colored sign reading “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And on Yom Kippur morning, two youths arrived with a large dog and, in apparent mockery, asked to arrange a bar mitzvah for the animal.

Mazor said the congregation had been receiving updates from police but had not been told which of the five incidents the three minors were suspected of involvement in or the precise allegations against them. Officers had also “made a point of checking in with us,” he said, in a bid to maintain good relations with the congregation.

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion condemned the attacks and expressed support for the congregation in a private conversation with Mazor before Yom Kippur, but Mazor said he was disappointed that Lion had not spoken out publicly.

Mazor contrasted Lion’s silence with his public responses to previous vandalism of Orthodox synagogues in the city, saying it was “unfortunate” that a Reform synagogue was being treated differently, and suggested it may reflect the mayor’s political considerations, given the influence of haredi parties in Jerusalem politics.

“When there have been previous incidents of violence and vandalism against Orthodox synagogues in the city, he knew how to show up and take a stand. He knows how to speak out clearly against violence,” Mazor said. “So I’m disappointed that in this case, when it involves a Reform synagogue, things are being handled differently.”

The congregation also asked Herzog to urge Lion to speak out publicly, Mazor said.

“If the city’s leadership does not speak out against violence, then, heaven forbid, it sends a message of acceptance of that violence,” he said.

Lion’s office rejected the suggestion that political considerations explained the mayor’s failure to condemn the attacks publicly at the time. His spokesperson said the city deliberately avoided drawing further attention to the synagogue “so as not to escalate things.”

Lion contacted Jerusalem district police commander Avshalom Peled to request additional forces for the synagogue while also instructing the municipality’s policing division to increase its presence there.

He also issued a statement Sunday condemning recent violence in the city. “I strongly condemn any attack, by anyone, on what is sacred to others, their activities, customs and ways of life,” he said. His office said the statement encompassed the attacks on Kol HaNeshama, though it did not name the synagogue.

Shoua Haim echoed Mazor’s call for public statements from both the government and Jerusalem’s leadership, warning that “this incitement could get worse if we don’t all work together to stop it.”

The congregation invited Herzog to a solidarity event at Kol HaNeshama on Wednesday, organized with Jerusalem communities from across the Jewish denominational spectrum. The gathering will express support for the congregation and opposition to “violence and fanaticism,” Mazor said.

After the first attack in August, members of different congregations, including Orthodox synagogues, joined Kol HaNeshama for a Kabbalat Shabbat service in support of the congregation.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Herzog speaks with Jerusalem Reform synagogue leaders, personally checks in with police  appeared first on The Forward.