Monday, December 12, 2011

Day 4

       Today was our second day of visiting social service organizations. It was also our most busy day yet. We first visited EZRA a Jewish organization dedicated to helping victims of the Holocaust. They are called EZRA because it means "help" in hebrew. The first thing that I noticed was that they had very high security there and I was even asked not to take pictures. After we arrived there, we were brought into a presentation room. A women then gave a presentation on what EZRA was and what they did. The presentation started out with a overview of the Jewish community in Austria through history. To summarize it, there were 200,000 Jews in Austria in 1938; then by 1945 after the Holocaust, 5000 Holocaust survivors formed the Vienna Jewish society. Now there are around 12000 Jews in Austria which consist of about .5% of the population. This organization was very interesting because it was funded mainly by the city of Vienna which in many other ways is not very supportive of Jewish people but I will touch on that later. One thing that stood out to me was that EZRA does not only help Jews or only other survivors of the Holocaust. They also expand their service to other trauma victims as they are trained to help with this sort of thing. After hearing this, I am learning that it is a commonly held belief in the Jewish community that Jews are supposed to help all people, not just their own and that I for one believe in this moral code. The organization works by aiding in peoples psychological health. They work from two departments, the outpatient department and the social work department, which allows them to help the greatest amount of people. They also operate using a model of "what happened to you" rather than "what is wrong with you." Another topic that she highlighted was Austria's role in Aiding Jews after the holocaust. What she said was that Austria has refused to accept responsibility for Nazi crimes and has adopted the victim mentality saying they they were victims because they were also occupied. By taking this mentality, they were able to rationalize not aiding in the compensation and benefits to victims of the Holocaust that Germany had to pay. As a result of this, many survivors were excluded from social security and other benefits which resulted in many of these people died. Another way Austria was unhelpful to victims was that they made a law saying that a person could only be considered a citizen if their father was an Austrian citizen. This basically screwed over a lot of children of survivors. Another way they have been unhelpful is that if people left Austria, the government has made it difficult for people who left to come back. Jewish immigrants are excluded from certain rights such as health/social car etc. When the presentation was over, she opened the floor to questions. So i decided to ask if there was still discrimination against Jews in Austria today. Her answer made me sad because I know this is true of many places today. She said that there was still discrimination against Jews in Austria except that it was now hidden in the undertone of people. Meaning that although people do not say things out right, you can hear it in their voice and see it in their actions. What I took from this experience is that although the Austrian government is not very helpful itself in social services, there are organizations who work to fight that and help people. This is a part of the model of social services that Vienna displays.
       After we visited EZRA, we went to the Jewish Museum of Vienna. I was very excited for this visit because I assumed that they woud have a lot of interesting artifacts and information there and I could learn a lot about the history of Jews in Europe. Unfortunately, I may have set my expectations too high because I was actually very disappointed with the museum. There was not much in depth information or helpful artifacts there that I could learn from. It almost seemed as if it was a museum for people who had never heard of Judaism and only wanted a brief overview of what it was. The main exhibit, which was most of the museum, was on Movies in Hollywood and I don't believe that it was prevalent at all to my thirst for knowledge about my heritage and history. They did have one room that had artifacts from different temples throughout history and also had different artifacts that were peoples depictions of Jews in the past. Some that stood out were canes that depicted Jews on the handle and it was very obvious the stereotypes that were there. I hope to visit the Jewish Quarter in Vienna at some point on this trip to hopefully have a better learning experience.

Funny statement I found in the Jewish Museum 

Stereotypical depictions of Jews on Canes displaying peoples bigotry

       After the Jewish Museum, we then hung out in Stephanplatz for a little bit and explored. After that, we came back to the Kellar where we meet with a Baptist pastor named walter. He gave us his ideas and views on social justice in the world and it was very thought provoking. One thing that was very interesting was how different Baptist in Europe are from American Baptists. The whole idea of the Baptist church in Europe was that your free to choose, free to change, and free to leave. This is a foreign idea to the ideas of christianity I have seen in my life. From what i have seen in the past, it has been much more about everyone having to believe the same exact thing and if not, they will not go to heaven. Another thing that he said which stuck with me was that Baptists coming to America were the roots of human rights in America. When we got to the point about the motivation to do good, another person on the trip, Gabe, and I brought up some views of the Jewish philosopher Levinas. He says that people are moved to action by the face of the other and in this idea, God is not the motivation. What surprised me was what Walter said. He said that it does not matter where the motivation to do good comes from but he "plugs into God" for strength to keep on helping and going. He said that it is very hard not to get tired, depressed, and cynical if you do not have something to give you power. Although i am not sure if I agree with him entirely, it was a very interesting thing to hear. I am still struggling with where my motivation to help my fellow human comes from after this talk because I could not relate with this idea that the motivation comes from God and the idea that man is made in the image of God so that we are all equal.
St. Peters Cathedral in Stephenplatz. One of the places we visited after the Jewish Museum
The Kellar 


        After we talked with Walter, we left and got ready for something that I was highly excited for. Walter, along with a lot of other people we had met on the trip and others we did not know yet, were throwing a Krampus party at the Kellar, Krampus is a mythical creature who accompanies St. Nicholis during the Christmas season. He looks like a hairy devil and punishes naughty children. Every year there is a celebration on Krampus where everyone wears black and red, gets together, and has a party. We got there a little early so we got to know a lot of new people pretty well before the party got to large. At midnight, Walter created a pot of a special drink that they only make on Krampus. It is a pot of gluvine and other ingredients. They then put a cylinder of suger over the top of the pot and pour flaming rum onto it until it has all disolved into the pot. This, to say the least, was a spectacle. I enjoyed myself greatly but eventually got tired and decided to go back to Stephanushaus to sleep around 1 because I was tired. What was really funny was how annoyed my new Austrian friends were that I was going to bed. Apparently here in Austria, no one sleeps and going to sleep "early" is frowned upon. Overall, it was a wonderful day.

Carl being a star at the Krampus party 

Some of the girls at the Krampus party
The special Krampus drink 
As Walter poured rum onto it. Very cool :)

No comments:

Post a Comment