Tracing my mother's family in Vienna

My mother had told me that that her family had been quite extensive in the 1930's. Many of them had lived close to each other in Central Vienna.

I discovered that the  establishment of an autonomous Jewish religious community was officially sanctioned by Emperor Franz Josef in 1849. This distinction was the first of a series of measures culminating in definitive establishment of the Jewish Community (Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde) vesting the highest diplomatic status in the Jewish Community (Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde) as an official representative serving the Jewish population of Vienna as well as the Jewish community of Austria.

In 1938, the Vienna Jewish community had more than 185,000 Members, at the end of 1990s only 7,000 were registered in the Community.  While leaving their entire immovable and movable property behind, more than 130.000 Jews succeeded to escape Austria by the end of October 1941. Altogether more than 65.500 Jews from Austria are known to have been "eliminated" in the Shoah. Only approximately 5.500 of the Jews that were still in Austria in 1941 remained in Vienna at  the end of the Second World War.
Due to the autonomous nature of the Jewish community in Vienna, the Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde had maintained its own records of births, deaths and marriages. This information is not available online. I received no response to an emailed initial enquiry so the only way forward with these records would be a trip to Vienna. This would be further complicated by the records being entirely in German, a language that I don't speak. (Vienna Jewish Records Office)

I discovered that as Vienna grew in size the old local cemeteries has become too small and in 1874 the Central Cemetery known as Zentralfriedhof was opened. This is reportedly one of the largest cemeteries in the world, largest by number of interred in Europe and the most famous cemetery among Vienna's nearly 50 cemeteries. There are graves of many of Austria's most famous people in this large cemetery and there are also jewish sections. 

Fortunately the records for this cemetery are accessible online (Zentralfriedhof) and I was able to find details for some of my relatives, including my maternal grandparents.