Wednesday, 03-July-2024


This was a tough museum for me.

I’d been excited to see it ever since I first noticed it on my initial forays into Vienna, passing by on my way to the art history museum. I put it on the list, prioritizing other museums above it simply due to their global reach, but making a point to include the Vienna museum in my itinerary so that I could learn a bit more about the city that my Grandfather had grown up in.

It started off positively enough, just like any other museum really. Learning about the origins of the land, and of the first settlement of the region. I wandered and read, learning details about the Roman occupation, and little tidbits about those who came before, and some salient details about how the European world around Vienna had been expanding.

Then we came to the first mass extermination of the Jewish population.

From there, a thread emerged. Not something critically visible, or consistent, but… a thread, none the less. An undercurrent throughout the history of Vienna of Antisemitism, but also of forward progress being ripped out from under the feet of the people.


Even now, writing this from a hotel room far removed (both physically and chronologically) from Vienna, it makes me a bit sad. Learning about the fall of “Red Vienna”, a government aiming to better serve the population, to the forces of an Authoritarian regime which would go on to aid Nazi Germany… It was enlightening, but hard to learn about.

There was a constant theme to the museum; a theme reflected far too directly in today’s world, in my opinion. A story of opulence and poverty. Of incredible wealth on one end, and incredible scarcity on the other. A story which ended in war, and death.

I pushed on, becoming more and more overloaded and mentally saturated as I continued. I learned, I read, I photographed… and then, when it was all done, I headed out.

I needed coffee and sweet delicious things.