The Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna will play host to the crowning glory of the European football season when it stages the Euro 2008 final on the 29th of June. However, the stadium has a sinister past. In 1939, more than 1000 Jews were imprisoned in the catacombs under the stands while they waited to be deported to Buchenwald. Despite that, " the football continued as usual".
The stadium, which opened in 1931, was originally called the Vienna Prater after the area of Vienna where it is located, was renamed the Ernst Happel stadium in 1993. It was renamed in honour of the legendary Austrian football player and coach who died in 1992. As a player, Happel was capped 51 times for Austria, and as a coach he won the league title in four different countries. He coached the Dutch team that reached the 1978 World Cup final. Although it is officially known as the Happel Stadium, the Viennese still refer to it as 'the Prater'.
 David Forster in Vienna's Prater Stadium |
Viennese Jews
David Forster, a young Austrian historian, says, "they cherish their Prater but almost no one knows what happened here". As we walked through the empty stadium, Mr Forster points to Section B, located directly behind the dugouts. "There, under the stands, that's where Viennese Jews were imprisoned on the eve of the Second World War".
A few days after Hitler's army marched into Austria in March 1938, the Anschluss, or annexation, was complete. David Forster continues, "Synagogues in Vienna were torched in the same year. Many of Vienna's Jews managed to flee in time but those who didn't have enough money to get out were arrested sooner or later".
The prison soon became overcrowded and the Nazis looked for other locations, such as the Prater. In September 1939, more than 1000 Jews arrived in the catacombs under the football stadium. "They were of all ages, from extremely old to extremely young".
Plaster casts
Reports about the Prater prisoners reached the ears of Josef Wastl, the then-head of the Department of Anthropology at the Vienna Natural History Museum. The Nazis told Mr Wastl to immediately organise an exhibition about the 'Jewish race' but the anthropologist lacked scientific material for the exhibition. At the last minute, Mr Wastl was given permission to conduct research among the Prater Jews.
David Forster: "Wastl schlepped his instruments to the stadium and chose 440 prisoners and began his measurements there and then". He took hair samples, measurements and made plaster casts of the prisoners' faces.
Buchenwald
When Mr Wastl was finished with his research, Sector B was emptied and the Jews were transported to Buchenwald and other concentration camps. Mr Forster says,
"Almost all of them died shortly after they arrived in the concentration camps, all that's left is a few dozen plaster masks. They're still in the basement at the Natural History Museum."
The museum is located in an imposing palace on Vienna's Burgring. Margit Berner now heads the department of anthropology. With a large bunch of keys in her hand, she leads me down the poorly lit steps to the museum's basement. After opening seven doors she turned on the light in a room full of human skeletons. Six cardboard boxes labelled 'stadium - facemasks' are tucked away on the bottom shelf of an archive cupboard. They were discovered by accident 10 years ago. Ms Berner didn't know where they came from: "I searched through the museum's archives, contacted the Buchenwald archivists and the connection between the masks and the Prater was established".
 Margit Berner |
Holocaust survivor
Ms Berner takes one of the masks out of a box: "this is Gustav Ziegler's mask. He was one of the few survivors of the Holocaust. A few years ago, Mr Ziegler came to Vienna with his son and daughter and they and Ms Berner descended into the museum's basement. "Mr Ziegler, now a very old man, stared at this mask of himself as a young man and he remembered every detail of the experiments".
Murdered
The last line on a marble memorial tablet that was hung outside the Prater Stadium a few years ago reads, "Almost all of them were murdered". David Forster led the campaign for a memorial to the Prater Jews. "It took me eight months to convince people that it was necessary. At the last moment I really had to fight to get the word 'murdered' included. People wanted it to say that the prisoners 'died' after they were deported. Austrians still have an enormous problem dealing with the truth about their wartime past".
"The grass is looking good", says David Forster, facing the Section B stands. "The Jews were forbidden to walk on the grass when they were held prisoner here. They were allowed to get fresh air once a day but they weren't allowed to go further than the cinder track around the field. Football matches just continued as usual and people didn't want the Jews to damage the grass".
*RNW translation (jirc)