Interview with Meriel Schindler

In a recent Reading Circle programme we introduced the book The Lost Café Schindler by Meriel Schindler.

Launched in 1922 by two Jewish brothers, the grand Café Schindler in Maria-Theresien-Straße, Innsbruck offered guests a place to socialize, dance and forget the horrors of the First World War and the hardships of the peace that followed. It soon became the social centre of Innsbruck.

And then the Nazis arrived.

Through the story of the Café Schindler and the threads that spool out from it, this moving book weaves together memoir, family history and an untold story of the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The book has now been translated into German and Meriel Schindler came to Innsbruck to launch it. We were delighted to be able to secure an interview with her. We asked a range of questions about:

• her research
• her decision to publish and how it affected her research
• what she had learned about anti-Semitism in the Tirol
• her father Kurt Schindler
• Austria’s coming to terms with its past
• the struggle her family had to get reparations after WW2

Playlist:

Tomorrow Belongs to Me from ‚Cabaret‘

Tea For Two, sung by The Comedian Harmonists

One Alone from ‚The Desert Song‘, sung by Richard Tauber

Stardust, played by Artie Shaw

You Stepped Out Of A Dream, played by Zac Taylor Schindler