June 2008, Vol. 6 No. 5
In Search of Memory
Emigre Scientist and Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel Honored in Vienna in May
by Angela Woebking
As the year 1939 dawned, a young Jewish boy named Eric Kandel was living with his family in a small apartment at Severingasse 8, in Vienna’s 9th District. Anti-Semitism began to spread and acts of discrimination increased and the 9-year-old and his younger brother were forced to emigrate alone to the United States, with their parents following five months later. But like nearly all Viennese Jews, they left with nothing; the Nazis had already confiscated their possessions. One loss particularly hurt: a shiny, blue toy car powered by a remote control – a birthday gift from his parents that stayed forever imprinted on his memory.
He did not fully grasp the scope and severity of the turmoil around him. He could feel that non-Jews close to him had started to turn their backs. He could not have realized then how these dramatic experiences would guide him into the future, and the study of medicine through which he would help so many. …more
The Marshall Plan and Consumerism
We Call it a Vehicle for Exporting the U.S. Model. We Could Be Completely Wrong.
by Victoria de Grazia
The following is adapted from a keynote address on a conference in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Marshall Plan, held in Vienna May 19 and 20.
Conservative U.S. Congressman, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. once described the Marshall Plan as the “biggest damned interference in international affairs that there has ever been in history.” It has generated a famously huge and contentious literature.
Most of us believe there is a strong relationship between the Marshall Plan and American Consumer Democracy. We believe that the United States was committed to exporting its model of consumer modernity to Europe in the wake of World War II, as part and parcel of what Odd Arne Westaad called a borderless “Empire of Liberty.” …more
Israel at Sixty
Dreams and Disillusionment
by Christian Cummins
The history of Israel is dominated by images of conflict and contradiction: proud, uniformed teenagers with machine guns along side quirky and engaging images of beauty contests and the flush of prosperity – all portrayed with remarkable honesty in an exhibition at Vienna’s the Museum am Judenplatz that opened in May. There are 60 photos of 60 years, some humorous, some jubilant, some troubling, some tragic, but, remarkably, all of them from the camera of same photojournalist, David Rubinger.
It is hard to ignore one iconic colour picture dated 1968 showing five children lounging on the barrel of a Jordanian tank, as if it were the new attraction at the playground.
Following victory in the 6-Day war of 1967, a feeling of euphoria swept Israel. The party atmosphere is unmistakable.
“Tanks and weaponry became a symbol of everything that was good and of everything that we had achieved” said Rubinger, leading a guest through the exhibit.
But the image is disturbing. Children and war don’t belong together, and if they can’t be kept apart, then the relationship shouldn’t look so casual, so comfortable. Rubinger, who is certainly no hawk, agrees. But to understand the photo, you have to understand the psychological state of the people at the time. It’s the pictorial history of the young and troubled state of Israel. …more
From the Stands
An Affectionate Memoir of Viennese Soccer From an American Academic
by Andrei S. Markovits
The very first time that I came into contact with Viennese soccer was as a little boy in my birthplace of Timisoara, perhaps better known by its Hungarian name of Temesvar. My father was – as many Central European Jewish men of his era – a huge football fan. His dream was to leave his native Satu Mare (Szatmar) and travel to Vienna to pursue his studies at the Hochschule für Welthandel (School of Business and Economics). He only made it as far as Budapest where he enrolled in 1930 to study business administration, concluding with a doctorate in late 1937.
In Budapest, he became a rabid fan of the blue-and-white-clad MTK with which most Jews identified at the time – and still identify to this day. Enemy number one were Ferencvaros, sporting green and white as their club’s colors. MTK had a bourgeois, center-city and – thus – disproportionately Jewish following, Ferencvaros – or Fradi for short – attracted fans that were decidedly proletarian, from the industrial suburbs of Budapest, non-Jewish and often virulently anti-Semitic, in their chants if not always in their deeds.
As a little boy, I heard many stories of numerous MTK – Fradi derbies which my father attended during his student days. During one particular heated clash between these fierce rivals, he was beaten up by Fradi fans and denounced as a “dirty Jew”. I could still feel his rage twenty years later, his sense of humiliation undimmed by time.…more
In an Open Boat
Immigration from the Eyes of a Survivor of the Hellish Mediterranean Crossing
by Christian Cummins
Eric Nyandu Kabango is from Congo. The violence that has engulfed his country forced him to flee his home. So he moved to Gabon, where he was attacked, then to Benin, where he didn’t feel at home, and then, like many Sub-Saharan Africans, to the northern coast of Libya. There, living in a cramped room with five other migrants, he faced daily hostility from a suspicious local population.
For Eric Nyandu Kabango, like many others in his situation, Europe became ‘the land of milk and honey’ – the Promised Land. And that’s why he got together the money to pay for a 300-km trip across the Mediterranean in an open fishing boat.
Kabongo’s trip was part of a mass-movement of desperation. In the past five years, many thousands of African immigrants have come ashore on the EU islands of Malta or Lampedusa or have even made it to the coast of mainland Italy. But each year hundreds drown on the treacherous journey, or die of thirst or exposure on the ill-equipped vessels. Because the trips are organized in secret on the black-market, no-one knows just how many people have perished on their quest for a better life, but the international Centre on Migration Policy Development estimate that at least 10,000 have died trying to reach Europe’s southern shores in the last ten years. …more