Overview
- Interview Summary
- Selma Steinmetz describes her family background; her father, who was a Jewish grocer and a member of the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei; attending university and writing her dissertation about German philology; the rejection of her dissertation because she was a Jew; teaching high school German history; immigrating to France in 1938 and working in a Parisian home for immigrant children; losing her job when the home closed in 1939; the arrest of her boyfriend in Germany; escaping to southern France with Austrian refugees; making wallets and working as a secretary for the Quakers in Clermont-Ferrand for a living; returning to Austria in 1946 after the war; receiving an assignment as a librarian in the Städtische Bibliothek in Vienna; losing her job and becoming a journalist; her work with Amnesty International; the Jewish community in Vienna after the war; and not perceiving the existence of antisemitism in Austria today.
- Interviewee
- Selma Steinmetz
- Date
-
interview:
1975 November 14
Physical Details
- Language
- German
- Genre/Form
- Oral histories.
- Extent
-
3 sound cassettes (90 min.).
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Antisemitism in higher education--Austria. Hiding places--France. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Jewish refugees--France. Jewish women in the Holocaust. Jews, Austrian--France. Jews--Austria--Vienna. Jews--Societies, etc. Journalists--Austria. Librarians--Austria--Vienna. Quakers. World War, 1939-1945--Jews--France. Women--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Clermont-Ferrand (France) France, Southern. France--History--German occupation, 1940-1945. Paris (France) Vienna (Austria)
- Personal Name
- Steinmetz, Selma.
- Corporate Name
- Amnesty International
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Peter Wortsman conducted the interview with Dr. Selma Steinmetz in Vienna, Austria on November 14, 1975. The interview was received by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on September 9, 2003.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:59:03
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn516295
Additional Resources
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The collections consists of audio cassette tapes of oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors conducted from 1974 to 1975 in Austria, Poland, Israel, and France
Date: 1974-1975
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