That Jewish Story (in Vienna)

Virtually every Jew has that story. The one that explains why they are where they are and it usually is 'escaped the Nazis' (or, as the case often is, didn't escape the Nazis). Except, I didn't think I did. I grew up wondering how I was the only Jew, it seemed, who didn't have that relative who was murdered in a concentration camp. My paternal great-grandparents came to England well before persecution in central Europe. My grandfather and his siblings were born in England. My paternal grandmother was born in Belfast, her mother before that from Edinburgh. But that's weird, trust me. As I say, virtually every Jew has that story. The one that explains why they are where they are.

No more so than Vienna. Take just a few steps around the Jewish area and you'll stumble across Stolperstein, literally stumbling stones, small brass-coloured paving stones in front of buildings from where victims of Nazi persecution, mostly Jews, were taken, usually deported to a concentration camp and ultimately murdered. Deliberately understated reminders of the sheer number of Jews, often from single families that were torn from their homes and murdered by the Nazis. I first learnt about this quiet, Europe-wide memorial to victims of the Holocaust in Venice. I wondered how often I had walked over one of those paving stones on my travels, not stopping to notice the names written there. No more. I cross the street to read them. To take a moment. In Vienna this is particularly difficult; whereas the cities I had previously seen them in (Venice, Florence, Rome, Copenhagen to date) have clusters of one or two, normally, in Vienna they are often found in groups of seven or eight. House after house down a street. Some on the wall as well as the ground. Not enough room to document all the Jews murdered by Nazis. Of course, there isn't. Six million plus Jews were murdered. Millions more forced to flee their homes. A worldwide population that still remains below pre-Holocaust levels. A crime for which Europe will always bear the stain.

It's hard walking around Vienna. It's hard when you, personally, have that story. A grandfather forced to flee. The house he grew up destroyed. Looking for that name in the database. Not feeling relief when you don't find it because you know it should be there. Maybe spelled differently. Maiden name perhaps? When was she born? You wish it didn't have to be but it does. A feeling, perhaps a yearning, to bear witness. Because if we don't, who will? To stand where he may have stood. To walk where he probably walked. Before the Holocaust. Before the fleeing and the deportation and the murder. We are still here. Baseball-capped, hiding our identity, Magen David under, not over, our jumper, perhaps...what choice do we have? But here. Despite everything. Here. In the small brass paving stones. In the books inside the unaccessible Library-Holocaust memorial in Judenplatz. In the databases, of course...But also physically here. Because virtually every Jew has that story, and to have that story, we must still be here to tell it. And tell it we must. In the Jewish museums, they have a good go. The story of Viennese Jews, of Jews in Vienna (and why those may or may not be the same thing). A long and, as is often the case, troubled one with expulsion, discrimination, ghettoisation and, of course, the Holocaust. As an exhibit inside one of the two museums says, "It is impossible to be a Jewish museum in central Europe and not mention the Holocaust." Impossible indeed.

Vienna is not my favourite European city. I've written about it before. I feel the same. I find it a bit too shouty. Clinging, desperately, naively and ultimately unsuccessfully to a glorious imperial past it feels like it needs to start again but does not know where to begin. Perhaps this is unsurprising in a country mad at Jews for being victims of the Holocaust, refusing as it did for decades to accept its responsibility in the atrocities while trying to portray itself as the true victim of Nazism, rather than a collaborator with and enabler of that heinous ideology. There's plenty to do, plenty to see, Jewish and not. Plenty of gold and glory and beauty in amongst the horror. But it's hard to move past the Holocaust, the constant reminders, those small brass plaques that say so much more than the name of someone taken from us. Of that story.

The one that virtually all Jews have. Except, I thought, me. But I do have that story. I just didn't realise it. Didn't count it. It wasn't the Holocaust. It wasn't taught in (my) school. Not until I was wandering the streets of Vienna. I'm not sure why it hit me. Of course, I knew that my maternal grandparents were born in Baghdad. That's why my Savta spoke Arabic to me even though I didn't understand it. I knew that they were forced to flee. That's why we don't really know my Uncle's birthday. I knew all of this. I just did not put two and two together. That that's the story. That all Jews have. My Mum's parents were refugees. Forced to flee Baghdad against the backdrop of pogroms, mass rape and mass murder. Like virtually every single Jew living in Arab lands. Forced to flee. For their lives. Not even a small brass paving stone on the street in Baghdad where they used to live. For generations. Of course. Because every Jew has that story. The one that explains why they are where they are. Because their parents or their grandparents were forced to flee. To escape. To build new lives on the back of mass murder.

Every Jew has that story. We are one people. Joined together by so much sometimes we don't even realise it.