‘The Place of my Fathers’ Sepulchres’: The Jewish Cemeteries in Vienna Image removed from electronic version for copyright reasons – TC Tim Corbett ‘The Place of my Fathers’ Sepulchres’: The Jewish Cemeteries in Vienna A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of PhD by Tim Corbett, B.A. (Hons), M.A. (University of Lancaster) University of Lancaster, June 2015 Declaration I certify that this thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. Frontispiece: (from left to right and top to bottom) untitled, former exhibition of the Jewish Museum in Vienna (before 1938), JMW, 2628; matzevah of Francisca Edle von Hönigsberg (1769-1795), Währing, 4-385; Grabsteine beim Hofburgbau, CAHJP, AU-196; Detail from Wiener Zentralfriedhof, 1953, ÖNB Kartensammlung, KI 104092; matzevah of Joachim Stiasny (1826-1908), Tor I, 52A-12-20; Fotosammlung ’the city, the place of my fathers) הָעִ יר בֵּ ית-קִ בְ רוֹת אֲ בֹתַ י ;Seegasse, JMW, 3217 sepulchres), Nehemiah 2:3; matzevah of Rabbi Shimshon (Samson) Wertheim(er) (1658-1724), Seegasse; matzevah of Karl Kohn (1889-1914), Tor I, 76B-1-1; matzevot at Tor I, Section 5B; matzevah of Chief Rabbi Adolf Jellinek (1820-1893), Tor I, 5B-1-2; matzevah of Marcus Engel (1825-1909) and family, Tor I, 7-1-11; matzevah of Emanuel Weber (1851-1906), Tor I, 51-17-69; Wien 11, Zentralfriedhof 4. Tor, ÖNB Bildarchiv, HW 58, 8. ii Acknowledgements This thesis is the culmination of five years of postgraduate work, and five years of my life that have taken me literally around the world. Many people profoundly influenced this time, and this work, and I would like to thank them here. My gratitude goes first and foremost to my supervisors, Thomas Rohkrämer and Corinna Peniston-Bird. The depth of their knowledge and experience, and the patience with which they managed a student of fickle tastes, ensured not only the successful completion of this PhD, but of many academic successes I boast to date. Without their hard work and counsel, I would not be where I am today. I owe a special debt to the History Department at Lancaster University, with whom I have completed three degrees, whose faculty have deeply shaped my views on history and other topics, and whose generous funding through a Lancaster Pamphlets Award made this PhD possible. I also thank them for numerous smaller grants which afforded me regular visits to Vienna, and allowed me to conduct and present research as far afield as Israel and the United States. For their past and continuing support I especially thank Mercedes Camino, Aristotle Kallis, Andrew Jotischky, Deborah Sutton, Naomi Tadmor, Stephen Pumfrey and John Strachan. The tireless work of the administrative staff made research in the department a pleasure, and I especially thank Ghil O’Neill, who is now enjoying her much-deserved retirement after many years of shepherding haggard grad students through their theses, and Rebecca Sheppard, who kindly assisted me in submitting this thesis from abroad. Finally, I wish to thank my undergraduate students, who hopefully learned as much from me as I did from them, and remember my student Rosie Missett, who passed away far too young in 2012. The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies enabled me to successfully complete my PhD on site, not only through a generous Junior Fellowship, but especially through the patronage, assistance and friendship of everyone there. My deepest gratitude goes to Béla Rásky, who was my surrogate supervisor and a good friend in Vienna. His profound knowledge of Viennese history and his erudite critique were invaluable resources in the final writing of the dissertation. I thank him for many insights – academic and personal – which his iii friendship has afforded me. Zuzanna Dziuban and Ines Koeltzsch read and provided feedback on numerous drafts, and without their prompt and astute advice I would surely not have completed on time. Éva Kovács and Ionut Biliuta offered tremendous advice during the final writing. Philipp Rohrbach was a challenging discussion partner, and all his help – great and small – during my fellowship is just one reason I call him a friend. Finally, I thank Suzi Swartz, ever my deepest partner in crime during my time in Vienna, both on and off the job. For their prompt, friendly and professional help over the years, I thank the archive of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde in Vienna, especially Susanne Uslu- Pauer, the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv, especially Manuel Swartek and Angelika-Shoshana Duizend-Jensen, and the Jewish Museum in Vienna, especially Christa Prokisch, Eva Wosobe, and the team in the library. I thank the Austrian Studies Association, who have been a great source of encouragement and support, whose generous funding to attend their annual conferences has afforded me invaluable opportunities to present and discuss my research (and two unforgettable trips to the United States), and with whom I look forward to working for hopefully many years in the future. I also thank the German Historical Institute in London and the Joint Distribution Committee in Berlin, whose generously funded conferences provided an ideal framework for discussing research. At Vienna University I thank Ruth Wodak, whose life’s work studying and combatting prejudice in all its forms is nothing short of inspirational, and without whose support I would not have made it this far. At Vienna University I also thank Andre Gingrich, Walter Manoschek, at Innsbruck University Dirk Rupnow, and at Lancaster University Anne-Marie Fortier and Johnny Unger, for numerous thought- provoking discussions. In Israel/Palestine, I thank Goor Zomer and Shai Cotler for many hours of painstaking assistance in translating difficult and obscure Hebrew sepulchral epigraphy, especially Shai, who is always ready to help others, even at great personal risk (can your VW take much more of a beating?). To him, as to Minna Weisberger, and especially Hala Atirah: thank you for putting me up during my visits to the Middle East, for your help in difficult situations, and above all for your wonderful friendship. Israel/Palestine would be a happier place if more people thought like you. In Vienna, I thank Tina Walzer for her help in researching the iv Währing cemetery; Gustl Faschang and the Speakers’ Corner for many hours discussing Austrian politics, society and history, which afforded me invaluable insights as well as many wonderful evenings together; Matthias Falter, Verena Stern, Elisabeth Haid and Ina Markova for all the help integrating into the Austrian academic landscape, and for many lovely hours together. In New York, I thank Ofer Dynes for his encouragement to reach for the stars. In Lancaster, I thank Steve Dempster for many years of friendship and support, as well as my postgraduate colleagues, too many to name individually, for years of cooperation and support in all things academic and social, above all the inimitable Alex Wilkinson. A whole string of people over the past years have provided me with places to stay during my travels around the world, countless discussions of and support through my work and more, and above all the deepest friendship at the best and worst of times. Without you I would not have made it, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart: Karla Dümmler, Hannah Weinhardt, Martina Salakova, Alina Kang, Moni Küchenmeister, Nora Zirkelbach, and Linda Sophie Bachmeyer, you will always be my Vienna crew, wherever we end up. Wherever in the world they will be, I thank Davina Bayless, Håvard Sandvik, Danielle Dye, Evan Carter, and Ali Sabbagh for their friendship and support. Mark Griffiths, you kept me sane and reminded me never to forget my roots, bloody roots. To my family across the world: to my American family Ben, Emily and Henry Corbett; to my German family Franz Meckes, Hannah Jöckle, Christina, Cord, Carl, and Vinzenz Busche, thank you for all the support and love. In memoriam to Gertrud and Eri Meckes, we will never forget you. This work is dedicated to my brother Nick, you have been my best friend and my truest brother these past three decades, and to my father Thomas and my mother Gabriele, to whom I owe everything. You taught me to love learning, to rejoice in the huge, rich canvass of the world and to try to be a force for positive change. To you I leave these words with my love and gratitude. Tim Corbett, Vienna, June 2015 v The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space. – Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities. Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire? – Nehemiah 2:3 vi Abstract This thesis presents the first integrated history of Vienna’s four Jewish cemeteries as sites reflecting the construction, negotiation and at times contestation of Jewish communal belonging within Viennese society, embedded in the Viennese cityscape. Through a novel analysis of the sepulchral epigraphy of the thousands of matzevot or grave-memorials contained therein, the development and expression of codes of belonging constructed in the nexus between shifting notions of ‘Jewish’ and ‘Viennese’ culture are illuminated in a longue durée from the medieval into the modern periods.