ABSTRACT
Born in Vienna in 1913, I left the city in 1934. In 1919 I was six years old, hence my childhood corresponded with that of the Austrian First Republic and my departure coincided with the beginning of the Schuschnigg era. I subsequently returned to Vienna for a single visit in the autumn of 1935, when I completed my doctorate. In order to explain, at the outset, my personal circumstances during the period in question it will be necessary to locate my status as a child and adolescent in relation to Viennese society. My father was born in Biala, in Silesia, and had come to settle in Vienna after finishing his secondary education in Brünn (today Brno), in Moravia. My mother’s family had been a part of the Jewish bourgeoisie in the Habsburg imperial city for two generations. Her grandfather, originally the headmaster of a Jewish school in Moravia, had arrived in Vienna in 1868 and started up a small business.
