Jewish Community of Vienna

The Contact point for Jewish victims of National-Socialist persecution in and from Austria supports and advises affected individuals and their families with regard to reparations and compensation.

The history of Vienna's Jewish population dates back to the time of the Roman Empire[citation needed], but for a long time, Vienna's Jews were prevented from forming an organisation to represent themselves, as a result of legal and social discrimination.

In a speech held on 3 April 1849, the young emperor, Franz Joseph I, used the words Israelite Community of Vienna for the first time; three years later, a provisory constitution for the community was enacted, and 1852 is therefore considered the year in which Vienna's Kultusgemeinde was founded.

[1] In January 2022 an international campaign was launched calling on IKG President Oskar Deutsch to intervene in the case of Beth Alexander who had been denied access to her twin sons[2] following a custody battle in the Austrian courts some years earlier.

It contains meeting minutes, decrees, protocols, reports, letters, emigration and finance documents, lists of deportees, indexes, books, photographs, plans, and posters which bear witness to the history of the IKG and its members.

Today, these documents are a record of the fate of exiled and murdered Jews, and are used to aid survivors' claims for restitution and compensation.