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By
Billie Ann Lopez
Dokumentationsarchiv
Des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes
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On
the outside wall, to the right of the main entrance of St. Stephan's
Cathedral, a small "O5" is chiseled into its dark grey
stone and protected under hard clear plexiglass. It is a simple but
powerful symbol for freedom in Austria.
"O5"
has come to symbolize all of the Austrian resistance movements
during the years dominated by the Nazi occupation, though originally
it was adopted by the O5 Group in 1944. In German, Austria is spelled
with two small dots over the "O" called an umlaut, which is
a contraction of "Oe" in the |
German
spelling of Austria, Oesterreich. The "5" represents the
fifth letter of the alphabet "e". Thus, the "Oe"
became "O5" as a shortened symbol for Austria's resistance
movements. (The name Oesterreich was outlawed in the Third Reich and
replaced by Ostmark.)
As
a symbol, "O5" connects Austrians of different religions,
political beliefs, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and occupations,
who struggled against national socialism. In 1963, the Documentation
Centre of Austrian Resistance was founded by historians and former
resistance activists to both document the rise of fascism and its
consequences leading up to and including World War II, and since the
mid-1970s, to guard against the rise of current right-wing extremism.
Following
the annexation of Austria in 1938, known as the Anschluss in German,
and continuing until the end of the War in 1945, 2,700 Austrians were
tried and executed for their resistance activities, 16,493 Austrian
resistors were murdered in concentration camps, 9,687 Austrians were
executed in Gestapo jails, 6,420 Austrians were killed in prisons and
jails in German occupied territory, and 65,459 Austrian Jews were
murdered in ghettos and camps. 130,000 Austrians fled because of
their political beliefs as well as for their religious, ethnic, or
racial backgrounds and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned.
The
Permanent Exhibition on the ground floor tells the story of Austrian
resistance to the Nazi occupation. The exhibit includes photographs,
posters, newspaper clippings, and other documentation to help
visitors follow the rise of National Socialism in Austria. The
exhibit also includes documentation of the post-war Austrian radical
right movement and neo-Nazi activities. Many of the exhibits have
explanations in both German and English. Guided tours are available.
Upstairs,
the Austrian Resistance Archive contains a reading room where
visitors can learn more about the period. The Archive has prepared
traveling exhibitions for use in schools and, at present, contains
2,100 cassettes of recorded interviews with former resistance
activists, victims and Holocaust survivors in its Oral History Collection.
In
addition to its collection of 40,000 photographs, 3,000 posters, and
many thousands of documentation files, the Archive and library
contains more than 35,000 books, and a large collection of
newspapers, pamphlets, and leaflets from the Resistance Underground
as well as from Nazi and present day right-wing extremist groups.
There are publications available for sale (in German and some in
English) covering the period.
The
Austrian Resistance Archive and Permanent Exhibition
(Dokumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes) is open
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. It is
located on Wipplinger Strasse 8, in the Altes Rathaus in the First
District. Entry is free. If the Permanent Exhibition Rooms are closed
during opening hours, you may go upstairs to the Archives and a staff
member will open the doors for you.
Tel:
43 1 534 36/90319
e-mail:
office@doew.at
http://www.doew.at |
