In honor of today’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was established by the UN for this day commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I have been thinking back to my travels in Vienna during my sabbatical in February, 2020. During that leg of my trip, I also took a day trip to the Mauthausen concentration camp, which is about 90 minutes outside of Vienna.
In April of 2020, I did a three-part series online which I called my Travel Diaries, with the second of the three focused on my travels in Austria. I focused on all elements of my trip, including much of the culture and learning much about the Austrian Jewish community. I had the privilege of visiting the Stadttempel (City Temple) in the heart of Vienna, where the famous cantor Solomon Sulzer served. It was incredible being there in the place where his music was born.
My tour to Mauthausen was powerful and eye-opening.
I share my archived video of my Tour Diaries below for anyone who would like to learn more about this history and culture. They are cherished memories for me.
(Note: In the video below, I was still learning how to broadcast from Zoom to Facebook at that time, so you may want to fast-forward the video to 3 minutes in to skip over my confirming that the technology was working.)