ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author provides an autobiographical memoir of his childhood in Vienna. His formal schooling began for a week in a kindergarten when he was about six and they temporarily had no maid. He wanted to play, not sleep; but playing was not allowed during the Schlafstunde. Soon after, in September 1930, having become schulpflichtig, the author was sent for several months to the Orthodox Talmud Torah school in the Malzgasse, in the heart of the Jewish ghetto in Vienna, a twenty-minute walk away. Many years later, in Baltimore, Maryland, the author was invited to give a series of lectures on Judaism at St. Mary’s University and Seminary for the training of Catholic priests. From January 1931 to June 1934, the author went to the Schubert-Schule where the headmaster was a much-admired humanitarian Social-Democrat. Marie Blesson, a devout Catholic, was his teacher at the Schubert-Schule.
