Survivor Suzanne Balaban and Austrian student Melanie Katzenschlager, seated, center, have been pen-pals for several years. Members of their respective families visiting in Austria in May are, seated, left, Melanie’s mother, Andrea, and, right, Balaban’s sister Ruth Ellinger; and, standing, Melanie’s brothers Michael, far left, and Herbert, far right; Balaban’s daughters Renee and Eileen Balaban-Eisenberg, second and fourth from left; and Ellinger’s son Allan and wife Bernadette.
Photos courtesy Renee Balaban
June 24, 2008
Seventy years after Suzanne Balaban, then 17, fled Vienna with her family in the wake of the Nazi takeover, she returned — this time at the invitation of the Austrian government.
Balaban and her daughter, Renee Balaban, both of Monroe, were accompanied by Suzanne’s sister, Ruth Ellinger of Coconut Creek, Fla. It was the first time the two sisters had set foot on Austrian soil together since 1938.
The April 30-May 12 trip was marked by public apologies from Austrian authorities for the country’s part in the Holocaust — which claimed most of Balaban and Ellinger’s family —meetings with students, and a visit to their childhood synagogue.
The highlight for Suzanne Balaban was addressing the many thousands of Austrians who had gathered at the Heldenplatz in Vienna to hear her pleas for tolerance of others in the same spot where, in 1938, thousands of cheering Austrians gathered to hear Adolph Hitler proclaim “the homecoming of Austria” into the Third Reich. Among those who addressed the gathering was Austrian President Heinz Fischer.
“Being able to stand in the middle of that plaza and being able to tell them what I thought the human race needs to do right now to help our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren was unbelievable,” said Suzanne, one of several survivors who spoke. “I told them, you need to take care of others and think of others…. People should stop killing each other in Darfur and other places around the world.”
‘Respect and warmth’
Renee termed the trip “the most life-altering experience my family and I have ever had.”
She said they were touched by the determination of the younger generation to acquaint themselves with Austria’s role in the Holocaust and to ensure it never happens again.
“There was a willingness to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ although it was past generations that did this,” said Renee. “No matter where we went, we were treated with respect and warmth.”
Some of the survivors spoke at schools and communities, she said, and they realized “many people had no idea about the Holocaust, and everyone was amazed at the stories they heard.”
Suzanne was one of more than 400 Austrian-born survivors from around the world who participated in the May 5 “National Commemoration Day against Violence and Racism in Remembrance of Victims of National Socialism.”
That day, survivors were invited to a special session of the Austrian parliament dedicated to the children who perished. The legislature’s president, Barbara Prammer, also issued an apology.
As the session ended, the lights dimmed and a screen displayed the names of the children who died in the Shoa; it lasted 30 minutes.
“That killed me,” said Suzanne. “I lost most of my family on both sides, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, lots of cousins. My parents came with us, but 98 percent of my family died.”
Suzanne has been participating in the pen-pal component of Austria’s “Letters to the Stars” program, which takes its name from a May 2003 project in which 15,000 Austrian students researched the lives of 80,000 Austrian victims of the Third Reich and wrote letters to them. The letters were sent aloft by white balloons as a remembrance and tribute.
Each May since, students throughout Austria have undertaken a different Holocaust project.
Suzanne was visited last year in Monroe by her pen-pal, Melanie Katzenschlager, who was sent to the United States as one of 25 student “ambassadors of remembrance.”
The Balabans spent time in Austria with the Katzenschlager family, and Suzanne spoke at Melanie’s Catholic high school in the town of Zwettle.
Renee said the students were “riveted” by the discussion. When a teacher asked them if they’d like to hear from the children of survivors, said Renee, “without a word, the students stood up, picked up their chairs, and turned around to listen to those of us who were sitting in the back of the class.”
On the evening of May 2, the family and other survivors attended Shabbat services at the Seitenstetten Gasse Synagogue, the only shul in Vienna not set ablaze on Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” Nov. 9-10, 1938. It was also the site of Suzanne’s confirmation 73 years earlier and where Ellinger’s husband and his brother became bar mitzva.
“One of the survivors handed the rabbi her prayer book that she used while attending the synagogue as a child,” said Renee. “She wanted the synagogue to have it on display depicting her return. It was very moving.”
Austrian-born Holocaust survivors Suzanne Balaban of Monroe, right, and her sister, Ruth Ellinger, were guests at a special session of the Austrian Parliament on May 5.
During the trip, Suzanne’s other daughter, Eileen Balaban-Eisenberg, and other relatives joined the group, and they all went to the Austrian town of Weitra, where they met 50 other family members representing four generations. They had traveled from Chile, the Czech Republic, Israel, Austria and the United States for the reunion.
It was not until recent years that Suzanne had learned of the survival of a number of her relatives.
“We thought there was only a handful of us left,” said Renee. “But we found more family and more generations who are rebuilding new families in the ashes of the Holocaust.”
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