Family fates. Intergenerational family memory

In Vienna, the memory of Maly Trascjanec is closely linked to the name of Waltraud Barton; she deserves credit for having created an awareness of this place of extermination and for having initiated a place of remembrance. Waltraud Barton initially wanted to know more about the deportation of her grandfather's first wife, Malvine Barton. Although she had not been part of the Jewish community since 1914, she was deported to Maly Trascjanec on 17 August 1942 and murdered there.

When Waltraud Barton went to Maly Trascjanec on her 50th birthday in 2009 to commemorate Malvine, she found neither a memorial nor a sign commemorating the atrocities that took place there 70 years ago. Waltraud took this as an opportunity to found an association: "Initative Malvine – Remembering Maly Trascjanec" (IM-MER). Since then, she has organised memorial trips to Minsk, published a book in which she gives the names of those murdered back to them, hung yellow signs in the Forest of Remembrance and initiated the erection of a memorial called the "Massif of Names".

For the future, Waltraud Barton hopes that we will also remember Maly Trascjanec in Vienna: at the Aspang railway station, in front of the collective apartments, for example, in the form of stumbling stones. Maly Trascjanec is supposed to be a synonym for mass extermination. She emphasised in an interview that only if we make ourselves aware of what made the murder of the 9,735 Viennese Jews possible can we prevent something like that from happening again in the future. We have to look, get involved and remember instead of forget. Therein lies a social responsibility.

Please click on the marked fields in the "Massif of Names" to learn more about the families.

Sources:

Sources for text in the image Theresia Löwy:

– Magder, Edna (2015): Searching for my grandmother. pp. 20–23.

– Magder, Edna (2015): Searching for my grandmother. p. 36.

Sources for text in the image Malvine Barton:

- Barton, Waltraud (2015): Das Totenbuch – Maly Trostinec. Den Toten ihre Namen geben. Wien: Edition Ausblick. p. 18.

– Barton, Waltraud (27.05.2021): Interview mit Sophie Wenkel und Verena Radner.