Mayor Alois Lugger of Innsbruck has announced that the city will erect a memorial at the site of the former main synagogue destroyed during the Kristallnacht in November 1938 which, in post-Anschluss Austria, was even more devastating than in Nazi Germany. Lugger said the State of Tyrol agreed to subsidize the project and the Innsbruck City Council will decide shortly on the financing.
The announcement followed a request by the Israeli Ambassador to Austria, Yissachar Ben-Yaacov, that the city government build a memorial. Before the Nazi take-over, more than 2000 Jews lived in Innsbruck. Most of them emigrated or died in the gas chambers. The present Jewish community numbers about 50.
Ben-Yaacov paid an official visit in Innsbruck where he presented the Yad Vashem Medal to Antonia Viehboeck. She and her late husband saved the life of a Jewish resident, David Ball-horn, by hiding him from the Nazi police for three years.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
