Press invitation: ‘10 years of city tours on Vienna’s Jewish history as part of the Vienna programme – press event with Minister Wiederkehr
Date: Tuesday, 16 September 2025, 10:30–11:45 a.m.
Start: Foyer of the Nestroyhof Hamakom Theatre, Nestroyplatz 1, 1020 Vienna
Participating school: HTBLVA Anichstraße, Innsbruck
The education minister Christoph Wiederkehr invites you to a discussion and press conference with a short city tour.
Since 2015 the tour ‘Life and Expulsion of Jewish People in Vienna’ has been an integral part of the Vienna programme offered by the Ministry of Education. The city tour teaches young people about the history of Vienna's Jewish population and their expulsion during National Socialism. More than 1,500 pupils from all over Austria take part in this tour every year. Since its inception more than 11,000 young people from all federal provinces have explored the Jewish history of Vienna and the causes and consequences of the Holocaust in Leopoldstadt in this way.
The two-hour tour leads through the 2nd district to places that represent Jewish life before 1938 as well as exclusion, persecution and murder during the Nazi era. The OeAD programme ERINNERN:AT's education team actively involves the pupils: by means of photographs and memories of Holocaust survivors the young people link specific places with life stories and historical events. Besides imparting knowledge the aim is to perceive and explore historical traces in their own environment. Today’s Jewish life in Vienna is also discussed.
On the occasion of the commemorative year 1945–2025 the Ministry of Education and the OeAD celebrate the tenth anniversary of this successful collaboration. 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the liberation from National Socialism and the re-establishment of a democratic Austria. The OeAD programme ERINNERN:AT (remember.at) dedicates its annual focus to the topic of ‘End of the war. Liberation. A new beginning?’. The city tour is part of this initiative.
Programme
10:30 a.m.:
Welcome address
Ingrid Lang, Artistic Director of the Nestroyhof Hamakom Theatre
Welcome address
Christoph Wiederkehr, Federal Minister for Education
Jakob Calice, Managing Director of the OeAD – Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation
10:40 a.m.: Discussion with the pupils about the Vienna programme and the commemorative year 1945-2025
Facilitator: Anna Katharina Obenhuber, Head of Department at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education (BMB)
11:00 a.m.: Photo opportunity and start of the tour with the Federal Minister Wiederkehr
(3 stops at Nestroyplatz and in Tempelgasse)
Further information about the Vienna programme:
https://www.bmb.gv.at/Themen/schule/schulpraxis/pwi/wien/wienaktion.html
Further information about the tour and ERINNERN:AT’s annual focus:
https://www.erinnern.at/bundeslaender/wien/artikel/rundgang-wien-leben-und-vertreibung-der-juedischen-bevoelkerung-in-wien
https://www.erinnern.at/themen/jahresthema-2025-80-jahre-kriegsende-befreiung-neuanfang
Please register: presse@oead.at
