Judenplatz

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The Judenplatz ("Jewish Square") is a square in Vienna's central first district. It is located not far from the Stephansdom in the center of the city, a beautiful 12th century church, which contains stained glass windows depicting the Viennese Jews during that period.

[edit] History

The Judenplatz was the main square of the Jewish community for nearly 500 years. Today in the Judenplatz, one can find the offices of a number of Sephardic organizations and a small beth midrash. Inside one of these beit midrashes, is a subterranean mikvah dating back to the 15th century.

The Judenplatz Museum contains a room where archæologists discovered the remains of the synagogue destroyed more than 500 years earlier by Duke Albrecht V.

[edit] Sights

Also within the Judenplatz is the Memorial to Austrian Holocaust Victims. Unveiled in 2000, the reinforced concrete cube resembles a library of 7,000 volumes turned inside out. The doors are locked and the books face inwards. The base of the memorial has the names of the places where 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Created by British artist Rachel Whiteread, the memorial's barred room and books that cannot be read represent the loss of those who were murdered.

The Judenplatz is also the site of a statue of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

Today, the Judenplatz is most known as the location of the Constitutional Court of Austria and the Administrative Court of Austria.