My Grandfather, Europe and the World in Vienna (4,623 km)

(2024-06-03/06) My GRANDFATHER Elias Hauster studied mechanical engineering at the TU Wien between 1898 and 1904. However, I didn't know until now that he made a mess of the practical part of his graduation and was only declared “qualified” as a graduate engineer at the second attempt in June 1904; nor did I know exactly when he dropped his birth name Silber in favor of Hauster. I learned all this during my visit to the TU Wien Archives. The head of the archive and his team were extremely friendly, competent and unbureaucratic in making the archives accessible to me, the first highlight of my stay in Vienna.

First I visit the City Temple, Vienna's main synagogue. Then it's off from the cool retro Café EUROPE in Zollergasse to the WORLD Cafeteria on Volkertmarkt.

Here I meet Julie Dawson, a friend and doctoral candidate at the Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna. Her lecture <„Uncertainty is a torture impossible to bear for long”: Examining Jewish Life in Postwar Romania> emphasising the diaries of Blanka Lebzelter from Bukovina, which she discovered, is both fascinating and enlightening.

Julie and I have been in touch for many years, but this is the first time we have managed to meet. Our paths could have crossed several times since 2006. Back then, Julie traveled from Berlin to the Caucasus with her bicycle and a tent, while I, also from Berlin, was on my motorcycle through the Ukraine and Russia towards Mongolia. There is still so much to talk about, so the “risk of repetition” for further meetings is high. That was definitely - only chronologically- the second highlight in Vienna!