From Exclusion, Deprivation, and Persecution to Suicide. Analysing Data on the Suicides of Jews in Vienna 1938–1945
From Exclusion, Deprivation, and Persecution to Suicide. Analysing Data on the Suicides of Jews in Vienna 1938–1945
Author(s): Wolfgang SchellenbacherSubject(s): Local History / Microhistory, Studies in violence and power, Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Fascism, Nazism and WW II, History of the Holocaust, History of Antisemitism
Published by: Wiener Wiesenthal Institut für Holocaust-Studien
Keywords: Suicide; Jewish population in Vienna; 1938-1945; Anschluss;
Summary/Abstract: Between 1938 and 1945, at least 1,100 Jews in Vienna died by suicide in the face of exclusion, deprivation, and persecution. This article examines data on suicides in Vienna put together for a symposium and commemoration ceremony, drawing from the databases of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance. Suicides peaked after the “Anschluss” of Austria in March 1938, but also increased during the November pogrom and at times when people feared losing their housing. While research had already suggested a connection between the mass transports from Vienna between autumn 1941 and autumn 1942, the data allows for an in depth-analysis into the correlation between transports and suicides and can demonstrate this on the level of individual transports leaving Vienna. Additionally, the article looks into the average age, the types of suicides, and demographic aspects, such as differences according to gender.
Journal: S:I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation.
- Issue Year: 9/2022
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 94-108
- Page Count: 15
- Language: English