Erwin Steinhauer / Szymon Nehring

Against the backdrop of the first democracy in Austria, which was economically unstable and characterised by racism, the journalist and author Hugo Bettauer ventured a literary thought experiment in 1922 with his satire »Die Stadt ohne Juden«: what would the cultural, economic, political and moral consequences be if all Jews had to leave Austria by law? With prophetic foresight, this 1922 novel anticipates the catastrophe of the Holocaust – and sketches an alternative that is too beautiful to have come true.