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.

In der Operngasse draußen stauten sich die Autos. Blieben vor einer Ampel stehen. Setzten sich wieder in Bewegung. Glitten am Fenster vorbei. Wurden schneller. Sausten vorbei. Wurden wieder schneller.