8. In 1421, over 200 Jews were burned at the stake in Vienna
The beautiful facade of the city of Vienna belies some really troubling history. For centuries, Jewish life in Vienna flowered around Judenplatz (‘Jewish Square’) in the city’s Innere Stadt district, with an important synagogue, school, hospital, and bath house. Notwithstanding the odd persecution (sadly par for the course, as we have seen), the Viennese Jews were left relatively unmolested until Archduke Albert V came along. He first taxed them heavily to fund his part in the Hussite Wars, then blamed them for collaborating with the enemy after a sound defeat. Slanderous accusations of host-desecration gave him ammunition for the inevitable.
In May 1420, Albert set about the Vienna Gesera (‘persecutions’). He arrested the wealthy Jews and sent the poor down the Danube on rudderless vessels. He also stole their property, tricked children into eating non-kosher foods, tortured, and executed them. Albert suffered another humiliating defeat in war, and returned to Vienna to take his anger out on the Jews still imprisoned. He tried to force the remainder to convert through torture, causing a mass suicide. Infuriated at this disobedience, Albert then rounded-up the 200-plus survivors and burned them alive on the outskirts of the city for the aforesaid ‘crimes’.
