Judenplatz - Vienna Geserah

Vienna Geserah

In Vienna under Duke Albrecht V., the persecution of the Jews in the autumn of 1420 grew to a bloody climax in 1421. In the beginning were many imprisonments, with starvations and tortures leading to executions. Children were deprived and deceived into eating unclean foods, those that were defiant were "sold into slavery" or baptized against their will. The poor Jews were driven out, while the wealthy were imprisoned. The few Jews still living in freedom took refuge in the Or-Sarua Synagoge at Judenplatz, in what would become a three-day siege, through hunger and thirst, leading to a collective suicide, A contemporary chronicle exists, entitled the "Wiener Geserah", translated from German and Hebrew as the "Viennese Decree". It reported that the Rabbi Jonah set the Synagogue on fire for the Jews at Or-Sarua to die as martyrs. This was a form of Kiddush Hashem in order to escape religious persecution and compulsory baptism.

At the command of Duke Albrecht V. the last approximately two hundred survivors of the Jewish community were accused of crimes such as dealing arms to the Hussites and host desecration and on 12 March 1421 were led to the pyre at the so called goose pasture (Gänseweide) in Erdberg and burned alive. The Duke decided at that time that no more Jews would be allowed in Austria henceforth. The properties that were left behind were confiscated, the houses were sold or given away, and the stones of the synagogue were taken for the building of the old Viennese university. However, Jewish settlement in Vienna would not cease as the Duke intended, and a second major ghetto would emerge in Leopoldstadt in the seventeenth century.