Just to add to Peter’s excellent depiction of the memorial, when I was in
Vienna in November 2015, I stayed in a hotel a few hundred meters from the
square from which 10,000 Jews were deported to the camps:
http://www.frozenlight.eu/vienna2015/content/20151104-_DSF8322_large.html
Cheers,
Nathan
Nathan Wajsman
Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu <http://www.frozenlight.eu/>
http:// <http://www.greatpix.eu/>www.greatpix.eu
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
<http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws>Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
<http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/>
Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator
<http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator>
YNWA
> On 14 Jul 2017, at 11:57, Peter Klein <boulanger.croissant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> If any one place can symbolize the struggle between tolerance and intolerance
> in Europe, the Judenplatz in Vienna is a worthy candidate. At one end of the
> square is a statue of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a key Enlightenment writer
> and philosopher, and pioneering dramatist of the German-speaking world.
> <https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35910082945/in/dateposted-public/>
>
> Lessing's play "Nathan the Wise," set during the Third Crusade, was a plea
> for religious tolerance. The title character was based on Lessing's lifelong
> friend Moses Mendelssohn, today considered the spiritual father of liberal
> Judaism. Other characters are the Sultan Saladin and a Knight Templar. They
> discuss which of their three religions is the true one. Lessing's answer: "Of
> this you may be sure: Your father loved you all, and it was his ardent wish
> that all of you should love one another." This was such a radical idea that
> the Church banned the play during Lessing's lifetime. In some quarters, it
> is still a radical idea.
>
> Now let's turn around with our backs to the statue. We see this:
> <https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35869709356/in/dateposted-public/>
>
> This is the Holocaust memorial, in the form of a library turned inside-out,
> dedicated to the more than 65,000 Austrian Jews killed by "the Nazis" between
> 1938 and 1945.
> <https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35910083045/in/dateposted-public/>
>
> Behind and to the right of the memorial, you can see a building with several
> traffic barrier posts in front. This is the Jewish museum and community
> center. Such barriers, which surround most Jewish synagogues, schools and
> institutions in Europe, are a reminder of the real threat of terrorism. We
> could hear children singing Hebrew songs inside. The guard became *very*
> nervous when anyone walked near the barriers.
>
> The Judenplatz was the center of Viennese Jewish life during the Middle Ages.
> Until 1420-21, when Archduke Albert V instituted a series of persecutions
> against the community of 1400-1600 Jews. It culminated in the last 200
> surviving Jews burned at the stake, all Jewish property confiscated, and Jews
> banned from Austria. The Holocaust Memorial sits atop the foundation of the
> destroyed medieval synagogue.
>
> The statue of Lessing is the second one to stand in the square. The Nazis
> tore down the first one and melted it down for munitions.
>
> "Nathan the Wise" was playing at Vienna's Volkstheater during our visit. With
> supratitles in English and Arabic.
> <http://www.metropole.at/nathan-with-strings/>
>
> Today, who embraces Lessing's still-radical idea, and who its malignant
> opposite? It's a question we need to ask, and keep asking.
>
> --Peter
>
>
> --
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