December 1-5, 2007

Trip to Israel of a 10-people APC delegation from Austria and Germany (Ernst and Waltraud Loeschner, Marko and Hanna Feingold, Sabine Aschauer-Smolik, Maria Steidl, Hans Kutil, Petra Kronberger, Aster Karbaum, Annette Manger-Scheller).

Sincere thanks to Arad Benkoe, the cultural attaché at the Austrian Embassy and also to Gal and Uzi Talit for organizational and personal assistance!

These were the highlights of the trip:


(i) meeting with APC Honorary Committee member Paulinka Kreisberg, the daughter of Simon Wiesenthal;


ii) reunion with the APC contemporary witnesses and a meeting with many additional survivors in the “Club of the Austrians in Israel” in Tel Aviv, upon invitation of Ambassador Michael Rendi


(iii) discussions with the former Bricha commanders in Austria (Asher Ben Natan) and Salzburg (Aba Gefen);


(iv) visit to Yad Vashem with a presentation of the TV series (summary) by Hans Kutil (ORF Salzburg), originally shown in 2005: “Traum und Alptraum – Aufstieg und Fall des Nationalsozialismus in Österreich” (“Dream and Nightmare – Rise and Fall of National Socialism in Austria”)