A day that started with the idea of popping into the records office ended with over 3 hours of family ancestry tracing. We were guided by the Jewish Museum to the DOW (Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance) archive at the Old City Hall, 6-8 Wipplingerstrasse where we duly filled in a pro-forma giving our details and reasons for searching. After 10 minutes with only a few results we were asked if we had been to the Jewish Records Archive (where we though w...

Today we took the map with all the known addresses and headed for where we had been yesterday without realising: Zieglergasse and Kirchengasse off Mariahilferstrasse, the main shopping street in Vienna. We had been sent there by tourist information to find an adapter not knowing 4 Zieglergasse, where Fred, Rose and Erika lived, was on the next corner tot the electrical superstore. Again we found an apartment block but this time well maintained and hosting a smal...

We stumbled upon Lower Belvedere, the gardens and then the upper palace last night as there were practically next door. A couple of hours later and we had walked into the old city, past the opera, to Stephansdom and the horses pulling carriages by lantern light. We stopped at one of the NorSee fish cafes for tea. Fresh fish in the middle of Europe in a modern cafe cum restaurant style without the wait. Back to the room but too tired for the complimentary bo...

We sat next to an Austrian girl on the flight called Magdalena who gave us so much information and insight to Vienna that we easily found the S-Bahn, bought tickets and travelled straight to Rennweg station and to the hotel right across the road!

Spent a few hours with a list of addresses and a map of Vienna working out where my grandparents and great grandparents lived at the turn of the 20th Century until they escaped the Nazi occupation in 1938. A small paragraph in the guide book mentions a database in the Jewish Museum naming the 65,000 Austrian Jews who died during the War. A smaller sentence in a letter to my father is written alongside the name of three of my grandfather's sisters. It simply rea...