Where Life-Worlds Converge: Reflections on a Visit To Mattersburg

At first sight nothing seems out of the ordinary in the little-known Austrian town of Mattersburg, which is located in the rural Burgenland close to the Hungarian border. Inserted into the one-story houses characteristic of the local architecture is the obligatory high rise, erected in the 1950s as a symbol of prosperity and wealth. However, a Jewish cemetery with brand new headstones put up by the Chevra Kadisha strikes the narrator's attention immediately; and upon further investigation, he learns that the otherwise unremarkable high rise was built on the site of the town's destroyed Jewish quarter. This essay explores the fate of the Jews of Mattersburg, the events that precipitated the demise of their community during the Nazi era, and the significance of the reconstructed graveyard, a monument to a sizeable traditional Jewish community. To the narrator, the lost shtetl of Mattersburg calls to mind similar sites in his native Russia that to this day have remained unmarked and forgotten; he sketches a cultural panorama that extends from Mattersburg to the Russian Pale of Settlement, where his family had its roots.