Vienna archives

Subject: The Archives of the Jewish community of ViennaFrom: "Henry Wellisch" Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:58:26 -0400X-Message-Number: 11Before WWII Vienna with its 175,000 Jews was the third largest Jewishcommunity in Europe, however by the end of the war only a few thousandwere left. The official body representing Vienna's Jews was theIsraelite Religious Community, known as the IsraelitischeKultusgemeinde Wien (IKG). This was a large organization with manydepartments, including registration of births, marriages and deaths(BMD), upkeep of synagogues and cemeteries etc.Fortunately for us the huge archive of the IKG survived the war moreor less intact, and since the re established IKG was unable to lookafter it, a large part was transferred in the 1950s to the Archive forthe History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem.The BMD records remained in Vienna with the IKG and in the 1980s thesewere microfilmed by the Family History Library. In recent years theHolocaust Museum in Washington started to microfilm some of therecords pertaining to the period 1938-1945 and this project is stillgoing on. With the cooperation of people from various institutions Ihave compiled a short list of the type, location and accessibility ofthe records and this article can be seen on the web page of theAustria-Czech SIG, but you can go directly to:http://www.jewishgen.org/austriaczech/ikgarchive.htmlHenry WellischToronto--