Before 1938, Vienna Austria had a well established and extensive Jewish community complete with 22 shuls, a Jewish museum, Jewish libraries, schools, hospitals, orphanages, sports clubs, theaters, newspapers and zionist organizations. Jews made up 10 percent of the Viennese population with 170,000 Jews living in the city in 1938. In total Austria had a Jewish population of about 192,000, representing almost 4 percent of the total population. Viennese Jews were well-integrated into society and culture, making up much of the city's doctors, lawyers, businessmen, bankers, artists and journalists.
On March 12, 1938 The Nazi Party entered into Austria and received the enthusiastic support of most of the population. A week later the Nazis and their Austrian supporters began a wild and vigorous rapid dispossessionof Austrian Jewish property in addition to extreme intimidation and violence towards all Jews. On April 27, 1938 it was announced that all Jews with property including real estate, personal possessions and bank accounts worth more than 7,500 Shilling ($2,000 US dollars, worth $41,000 today) were ordered to submit proof of their fanatical status to the government so the Nazi authorities could loot them, which would contribute to their war preparations.
On the night of November 8, 1938, conducted by Nazi leaders, a large wave of vicious antisemitism swept all over Austria and Nazi Germany. Innocent Jews were fiercely arrested, hundreds of Shuls were burned and ferocious riots erupted. Thousands of Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized and Jewish cemeteries and homes were destroyed. Before hand, the police and firefighters were told to ignore the attacks, which they did. The next morning, these Nazi leaders ordered the arrest of 30,000 Jewish men who were sent to the first concentration camps built, Dachau and Buchenwald, in Germany. The night of November 8 became known as Kristallnacht, or “the night of broken glass”, named after the shattered glass from the Jewish store windows that got scattered on the streets.
The next two years after, thousands of Austrian Jews were deported to various concentration camps in Poland, Austria and Germany. By December 1940, there were still about 50,000 Jews living in Vienna. They were mostly unemployed and crammed into apartments with other families, their bank accounts blocked or frozen. By 1944 only 6,000 free Jews remained on Austrian ground.
Thousands of shuls and businesses are burned and vandalized during the Kristallnacht.
(what my mother calls) The Great Frankel Escape
My Great-Grandparents were from Vienna, Austria and had lived there for many years. In March of 1938, the Nazis came into Austria, rounding up all the Jews, my family somehow got word the the Nazis were specifically going to come to their house that night to deport them to a camp. The family worked quickly and made a sign reading “Danger! Smallpox, keep away!”. The Nazis did come that night but when saw they saw the concerning sign, they moved on to the next house. At this point the family was all packed up and quickly got a train to Switzerland to live with friends they had there. They arrived in Switzerland but wanted to go to France (for an unknown reason) so they sent all their possessions there but luckily the friend they were staying with convinced them to stay in Switzerland.
Not long afterwards, the Jews of Vichy France were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. My family would have been sent to these camps as well, had they not been convinced to stay in Switzerland. The family stayed in Swizterland for a few years and had four sons, including my grandfather. As young boys, they attended school in Switzerland but had to change their Hebrew Names to ones acceptable for school. My great uncle's Baruch Pinchas and Eli Melach became Bruno and Emanuel and my grandfather Meir became Max. After several years, they were able to travel to America before the end of the war with their uncle, (possibly) the 3rd Skolya Rebbe, as their sponsor. They arrived in America, learnt English, had another child, and eventually prospered.