Fragment : Mapping Literature

Madensky Square - pp 49

The Triumph lasted till I alighted at the Bristol, walked across the richly carpeted foyer, smelled the cigars from the Smoking Room - and then there was a moment of panic, for after all any kind of disaster could have overtaken the Feldherr von Lindenberg since the early hours of today.
But it was all right. I gave the name I always gave, the porter handed me a key. No smile of complicity, no recognition though I was here less than two months ago. The Bristol isn't intimate like Sachers; no naked archdukes come whooping out of the Salles Privees. Here is complete discretion, anonymity. No wonder the nice fat English King Edward liked it best of all the hotels in the city.
My room was perfect. I could see over the roofs to a garden with a swing and pond with pin-sized children who should have been in bed. I took off my hat and put it on the hatstand. I sat down on the bed.

Creation Madensky Square

Starting Page Number 49

Ending Page Number 49

Indoor Yes

Outdoor No

Non replacable scenery No

Fictional No

Topics (none)

Anchors (unlabelled)

Near fragment in time

At the beginning of this century, Vienna was home to a Jewish population of about 200,000 including unusually large concentrations of Turkish, Galician, Balkan, and Hungarian Jews. Synagogues proliferated to accommodate regional groups, graduation of orthodoxy, and craftsmen in special industries who formend their own congregations. The stylistic range in Viennese synagogues encompassed neoclassicsm (Seitenstettengasse), Moorish (Tempelgasse), a free mixture of massive art nouveau with Romanesque and Gothic detail (Pazmanitengasse), and timid modernistic (Hitzing-Eintelbergergasse). Of all these synagogues, numbering about sixty during the mid- 1930s, only one survived the second World War. That was the oldest, the „Tempel“in the Seitenstettengasse in central Vienna. It took a long time for the Jews to increase sufficiently in number and status to commission this building. There had been Jews in Vienna since the late twelfth century; the first synagogue, in St. Stephen´s parish, was mentioned in a document of 1204. Later thirteenth-century documents refer to this or other synagogues, and documents of 1406 and 14220 refer to the burning of synagogues. The document of 1420 describes the synagogue on the Judenplatz as having a men´s prayer hall, a women´s section linked to the men´s by a window, movable seats, and an area where oil was stored. In 1421 came the expulsion or burning of the few Jews who had not died during the program of the previous year.

pp 186 from Synagogues of Europe: Architecture, History, Meaning by Carol Herselle Krinsky

Near fragment in space

An einem schönen, sommerlich warmen Maimorgen kam vom Westbahnhof her ein Automobil vor das Hotel Bristol gefahren, dem ein eleganter, schlanker, dunkelhaariger Herr entstieg. Der Hoteldirektor musterte mit geübtem Blick den schweren Lederkoffer und das Handgepäck und dann erst den Fremden, dem ein kleines Knebelbärtchen im Verein mit dem aufgezwirbelten und in Wien sehr unmodernen Schnurrbart einen exotischen Anstrich verlieh. Südfranzose! taxierte der Direktor, rechnete rasch im Kopf französische Franken in Kronen um, und beschloß, dem erstaunlichen Resultat gemäß, den Zimmerpreis zu stellen. Auf die französisch vorgebrachte Frage, ob ein Zimmer frei sei, erwiderte er, ein ironisches Lächeln mühsam unterdrückend:
»Jawohl, Monsieur, ein einzelnes Zimmer gefällig oder ein Appartement mit Bad? Mit Aussicht auf den Ring oder nach rückwärts?«
Der Passagier ließ vor Erstaunen das eingeklemmte Monokel fallen.
»Ja, wie ist denn das? Früher konnte man doch ohne vorherige Anmeldung nirgends unterkommen!«
»Mein Herr,« seufzte der Direktor jetzt tief und ehrlich, »Sie waren wahrscheinlich anderthalb Jahre oder länger nicht mehr in Wien! Seither hat sich viel verändert!«

pp 65-66 from Die Stadt ohne Juden by Hugo Bettauer