Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Jewish Community Library In Vienna: From Dispersion And Destruction To Partial Restoration, Richard Hacken

Faculty Publications

On 25 October 2000, Austria’s first memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust was unveiled at the Judenplatz in Vienna. Conceived by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and designed by British sculptress Rachel Whiteread in the form of a nameless library, a concrete block displays shelves of books with their spines turned to the inside, enclosing an area made inaccessible by a permanently locked door. The outer memorial is designed to represent Jewish culture and learning that were lost forever in the Holocaust, while the empty space within symbolises the many readers of the library who did not live on. Parallel …