Jews were banned from Salzburg in 1498 by Archbishop Leonhard of Keutschach “forever and eternity”. Only with the Staatsgrundgesetz of 1867 providing religious autonomy to the Jewish religion, were Jews allowed to settle in Salzburg again, despite the initial resistance of the local authorities.
Albert Pollak from Mattersdorf was the first Jew after 400 years who was granted the right to settle in Salzburg. He was told by the office of the mayor: “You are the first, but also the last and only Jew in Salzburg!”. He was a bookseller and traded in rare books; the Archduke and heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand was one of his customers. In 1869, there were 42 Jews living in the city and county of Salzburg. In 1876 they came under the authority of the IKG Linz (Jewish Community of Linz) and only in 1911, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of Rabbi Dr. Altmann, was the establishment of an independent Jewish community possible. In 1932, 241 members, of them 109 taxpayers, were registered with the community of Salzburg.
The community maintained several communal institutions, a synagogue that was built in1893, and a cemetery established in the same year. There were cultural, and women’s organizations, a Chevra Kaddisha’ (burial society), and a Frauenwohltätigkeitsverein (women’s organization).
Dr. Adolf Altmann (1879-1944, KZ Auschwitz) was rabbi of the Jewish community of Salzburg from 1907 to 1914 and again from 1919 to 1920. He served as an army rabbi during World War I on the Southern Front and later published a history of the Jews in Salzburg.
The Jewish co-founders of the Salzburg Festival, Max Reinhardt and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, brought economic prosperity to the city. At the same time, the renowned novelist Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) lived in Salzburg between 1919 and 1934. Much of his literary oeuvre was written in his “Villa Europa” at the Kapuzinerberg. When the police searched for weapons in his house in February 1934, he decided to leave Austria for good.
The theatre director Max Reinhardt (1873-1943) was one of the co-founders of the Salzburg festival. The “Jedermann”, directed by Reinhardt, was performed for the first time at the Domplatz in Salzburg in 1920. Reinhardt lived until 1937 in the Castle Leopoldskron. He immigrated to the USA where he died in New York in 1943.
Robert Jungk (1913-1994) was one of the most important mentors of the student revolutions, the peace movement and the environmental movement. He lived in Salzburg from 1970. He received the alternative Nobel Prize in 1986 and was a candidate for the office of Federal President of Austria in 1991.
230 Salzburg Jews lost their possessions and their homes, their country and in many cases their lives under the Nazi persecution. Several members of established families returned to Salzburg after the Second World War. Salzburg became the temporary home for thousands of DPs (homeless survivors of the Holocaust) from Eastern Europe; several of them chose to stay there. It was also a main stop on the way to Italy for Jewish refugees who tried to get to Palestine with the Bricha movement.