Archive | November, 2022

Pension office

22 Nov

I went to the pension office this morning to clarify a few points and saw that some things have really changed in Austria and some things haven’t.

One thing that has changed: the woman in front of me in line at the reception desk was talking about her “Partnerins” (female partner’s) appointment. When there was some confusion about her name, she explained that when they had married she had taken on her partner’s family name and officially changed it on all her documents. Then I overheard that she herself isn’t self-employed but rather her partner, and she would like to be covered under her partner’s insurance.

This would have been unimaginable even five years ago (Austria enacted “Ehe für Alle” or “Marriage for All” on 1 January 2019, building on the civil union that became possible in 2010). For anyone who would like more information, here is a website (in German) giving an overview of the history of same-sex marriage as well as legal details: https://www.familienrechtsinfo.at/eherecht/ehe-fuer-alle/

Something that hasn’t yet changed? When I came out of my appointment, there was a man waiting, with his large, well-behaved, non-service dog. Wish I’d known I could have taken Maylo!

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NYTimes: Robert Clary, Who Took a Tragic Journey to ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ Dies at 96

20 Nov

Robert Clary, Who Took a Tragic Journey to ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ Dies at 96 https://nyti.ms/3GwlErL

My brother and I used to sneak “Hogan’s Heroes” because (a) we were limited in how much TV we were allowed to watch and (b) my mother, having grown up in Nazi Germany, objected to making light in any way of what happened. Would she feel differently if she knew that one actor was a concentration camp survivor and three were refugees? Perhaps. Or perhaps the reminders of those years would all still be too painful.

Three refugees, you ask? Robert Clary’s obituary only mentions Wilhelm Klemperer and John Banner. They left out Leon Askin, who played General Burkhalter. He was born Leon Aschkenasy in Vienna and lost both his parents in Treblinka. Ever since I learned that, years ago, I’ve thought how therapeutic it must have been to play the bad-tempered and quite repulsive General.

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64,440 Names

13 Nov

I have finally gotten around to creating a blog article I have been meaning to post for over a year. It is in the form of the first, and possibly only, video I have filmed for my blog. Because of the size of the file I am putting a link here for those who wish to take a look. Warning: It is on an emotional topic.

Some links to additional information:
The official website
The ORF report from 9 November 2022
Every name stands for a world that was killed

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World Champions

5 Nov

Having already pointed this out in four different years, I didn’t want to mention again that Austria once again did extremely well at the WorldSkills championships, where young people compete in the trades. (You can imagine that young Austrians do especially well in trades related to tourism and gastronomy.)

This year, though, something really special happened: the Gold medalist in stone-cutting was Austrian — and female. The Kurier this morning had an interview with Anna Karina Feldbauer (only 21 years old) about how this came about. Like most people who excel at something, she was simple fascinated by the idea of making things — even gravestones, a large part of stonecutters’ work — out of stone.

In a time when ever more businesses are seeking the next generation of skilled craftspeople yet ever more young people are going to university so that they have access to more prestigious jobs (and not necessarily because they’re really interested in, say, business administration), it strikes me that Anna Karina Feldbauer can be a really good role model.

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Schwedenplatz 2020

3 Nov

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the attacks at Schwedenplatz on that balmy evening that tempted so many people to be out and about on the eve of our third (or was it already our fourth?) lockdown.

So much has happened since then and life feels so different that it seems impossible that it has only been two years.

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Halloween comes to Vienna

1 Nov

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