Leopoldstadt, Judenplatz, and Beyond

Abstract

Discussions of Jews’ relationship to Vienna before 1938 tend to focus on their consumption of Viennese culture, including music, art, literature, and intellectual innovation. However, understanding place as a formative aspect of material culture can help us see another crucial aspect of how Jews—individually and collectively—came to terms with their place in the city. This essay examines the significance of place for Jews in Vienna through a variety of primary sources related to the Judenplatz, the square which is today the city’s premier site of Jewish memory, and Leopoldstadt, the district that encompasses Vienna’s most densely populated Jewish residential area. Memoirs, newspaper articles, caricatures, and maps written by both Jews and non-Jews reveal how the significance of these two areas changed over time, as they became deeply intertwined with the self-perceptions of both Jews and non-Jews. Analyzing how the Judenplatz and Leopoldstadt engaged Jewish difference over time helps us understand how the presence or absence of Jews remained a persistent dialectic in determining the meaning of place in Vienna.