How did the Holocaust affect Vienna’s Jewish population?

Before the Nazi occupation, Vienna’s Jewish community was a vibrant, culturally and economically prominent population of more than 160,000 people. The Holocaust devastated this community through a systematic campaign of terror and persecution known as the Wiener Modell (Viennese model), which served as a blueprint for Nazi expulsion efforts across German-occupied territories.123

The impact on the population was catastrophic:
* Exile: To escape the Nazis, approximately two-thirds of Vienna's Jews emigrated. By 1939, more than 100,000 Jews had fled Austria.123
* Violence and Destruction: During Kristallnacht in 1938, Vienna experienced some of the most virulent antisemitism in the German sphere. Hundreds of Jewish shops and apartments were plundered, and dozens of synagogues were destroyed.23
* Extermination: Those who could not escape faced forced confiscation of property ("Aryanization") and deportation. A significant percentage of the more than 65,000 Austrian Jews who perished during the war were from Vienna, many dying in extermination camps.123

Today, the Jewish population in Vienna remains a small fraction of its pre-war size, accounting for less than 1 percent of the city's residents.1