1939–1945: Deportations

Shortly after the beginning of the war and the military occupation of Poland, there were considerations within Nazi leadership circles of setting up a “Jewish reservation” in the newly established "Generalgouvernement" (the German administered part of Poland during the Second World War). Consequently, in October 1939, 1584 Jewish men were deported from Vienna to Nisko in two transports. However, the planned “Jewish reservation” in the Lublin district failed. In February and March 1941 – even before the beginning of Reich-wide deportations – a total of 5031 Jewish women and men were deported from Vienna to the “Generalgouvernement” at the insistence of the Reich Lieutenant Baldur von Schirach. The destination of these transports were small Polish cities, which were hardly prepared for the arrival of thousands of Jews. Following the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Nazi extermination policy no longer focused on expulsion, but on annihilation. As a result, systematic deportations and resettlements to ghettos, concentration and extermination camps “in the East” began in October 1941 throughout the entire German Reich. Within a year, 40,420 more Jews were deported from Vienna. After completing the deportation of most of Austria’s Jewish population in October 1942, an additional 1918 people of the remaining Jews were deported until the end of the war. From a total of 48,953 deported Jews, there are only 1734 known survivors.