Harvey Lee Abrams
State College, PA., USAVienna, Austria
Today is December 02, 2023
Today is December 02, 2023
Jewish Cemetery in Floridsdorf, Vienna, Austria All photos © Copyright 2022, 2023 Harvey Abrams I am helping a volunteer group clean and restore the old Jewish cemetery in Floridsdorf, Vienna, AUSTRIA. The cemetery has been neglected, of course, as most of the Jewish community from Vienna left Austria in 1938-39 or perished in the Holocaust. The Jewish community here was very large and contributed greatly to Viennese and Austrian culture. Floridsdorf cemetery was just one of several in the city and has been closed for decades. The volunteer group is led by Wilhelm and they work on trimming trees and overgrowth that have covered much of the property. Walking is dangerous because the ground is uneven, very soft in some places, holes hidden by weeds and broken headstones completely hidden by the thick growth of weeds. Many stones are extremely dirty from the overgrowth and require cleaning and restoration. These are the conditions in which I am taking photos. I am photographing the entire cemetery to help families work on genealogical projects. My photos currently number over 600 and all are posted here with more to come, an estimated 4,000 images. The collection illustrates the general layout and condition of the cemetery, groupings of stones to illustrate the general location within the cemetery and finally the individual stones. In some cases there are multiple images of the same stone from different angles. This has been necessary due to the lighting conditions (sunny days are required for good images). In many cases the trees block available sunlight making it difficult to read the engravings on the stones. Many stones are broken from vandalism as well as the World War II damage. Some stones are laying on the ground and are unreadable while others are buried under the weeds and need to be discovered. All the photos are copyrighted by me, Harvey Abrams, and may not be published elsewhere without written permission. You may download copies for your own, non-commercial use. The images are extremely large on purpose - you may use your computer to enlarge them to see very fine details. This is necessary to read and translate the inscriptions. The artwork is also very interesting and worthwhile to observe. Hebrew and German are the primary languages. If your only language skill is English then you will need translation assistance. |