Kurier, November 8, 2019
German original: https://kurier.at/chronik/wien/heer-hilft-am-juedischen-friedhof/400670171
Over the course of one week, 32 soldiers will remove scrub from the overgrown resting place.
By Anna-Maria Bauer
It is an unusual address for the 32 soldiers who will beginn their duty there on Monday: Schottenbachgasse 3, 1180 Vienna. It is the address of the Jewish Cemetery in Währing.
For one week, the Austrian Army will provide support services on the premises: “manual, manipulative operations,” the order reads officially. Specifically, this means that the overgrown resting place will be ridded of scrub. Federal Minister for Defense Thomas Starlinger has accepted a corresponding request from the non-profit Save the Jewish Cemetary Währing.
This organization was founded in 2017 by the businessman Günther W. Havranek and Ariel Muzikant, former President of the Jewish Community Vienna (IKG). The goal is to make the cemetery accessible to the public again as a testimony to the city’s history. Currently, the toppled, wobbly, and overgrown tombs pose too much of a safety risk.
Salonière und Ritter
For almost 100 years the cemetery, which opened in 1784, served as the main burial site for the Jewish Community in Vienna. In total, 30,000 people are thought to have found their final resting place here. People of substance, like the patron and salonière Fanny von Arnstein, or Gustav Ritter von Epstein are buried here.
In 1880, the cemetery was closed; during NS – rule it was partly destroyed and became overgrown afterwards. The federal state of Vienna, the federal government, and experts have been debating its rehabilitation since 2006. With the help of volunteers, the non-profit has already been able to rid an area of 20,000 square meters from the undergrowth. Some 4,000 square meters still need to be done. The non-profit hopes that the soldiers will be able to remove the remaining scrub in the coming week.
Then the next phase of the rehabilitation could begin; in a small test area, archeologists have already started: First, tests will be run to determine if tombstones are beneath the surface, then the stones are secured statically and raised by stonemasons so that they cannot fall over again.
One More Decade
However, it will take some time before that goal is reached. “Maybe five to ten years,” estimates Jennifer Kickert, a Green city councilor and spokesperson for the non-profit. The plants on the area have to be considered, too. Some old and sick trees have to be cut down. The structural restoration of all graves is planned, but more and more individuals and institutions, who want to renew single graves, get in touch.
The grave of the banker and industrialist Hermann Todesco has already been restored by the Austrian National Bank. The B&C Foundation, on the other hand, wants to take care of the restoration of the grave of the wholesaler Joachim Ephrussi (in 1860, he was the world’s largest exporter of grain). And the former businesswoman and author Susanne Schober-Bendixen will take over the restoration of a special grave. Through research she found out that her great-great-great grandfather Emanuel Redlich is buried here.