ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author provides an autobiographical memoir of his childhood in Vienna. His parents’ clientele came mostly from the 20,000 or so Galician Jews who stayed in Vienna after the war. As teachers, they were never out of work – even after the Anschluss in 1938 they gave some Hebrew lessons, Stunden, especially to prospective immigrants to Palestine. Since both his parents were highly qualified, they were supposed to be paid relatively well, about three schillings an hour – roughly equal to the cost of two kosher meals at a popular restaurant. In 1930, when the author was six, his father was too busy to look for a Zimmer, so his mother and he went to Sauerbrunn on their own. His father spent much time teaching him in Sauerbrunn. His father used Mendelssohn’s bilingual Hebrew–German edition to check difficult and rare Hebrew words.
