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Kristallnacht - "Night of Broken Glass"

On the night of November 9, 1938, Hitler ordered a pogrom against Jews in Austria. Hand grenades destroyed all of Vienna’s 42 synagogues and prayer houses, 6500 Jews were taken into custody and more than half of them were sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Members of the SA, Hitler’s “Sturm Abteilung,” ordered the Jewish residents of nearly 2,000 homes at gunpoint to leave, allowing them only one suitcase to carry with them. Jewish storefronts were smashed, the shattered glass piling up on the pavement.

The documentary “KRISTALLNACHT REMEMBERED” by Evie Sullivan captures the memories of three Viennese Jews, Annie Wagner Lampl, Frederic Morton, and Egon Schwarz, in personal interviews. They were children and young adults when they were forced to leave Vienna after Kristallnacht. They later established productive, happy lives in the USA. This film project may be the last chance to get the facts of this horrible event from actual survivors.


			Produced and Directed by Evie Sullivan When Senta Radax-Ziegler presented me with the opportunity to work on a program about Kristallnacht in Vienna, I grabbed it. Much of my family's history was entangled with that particular night. Fortunately, most of them survived, except for my grandfather who perished in Auschwitz. At some point, survivors will not be around anymore to tell the story. We, the second generation, are the next link to keep the memories alive so that they won’t be forgotten. Evie Sullivan left Vienna in 1982 after a career as an actress with the Austrian National Theater, the Burgtheater, to live in Los Angeles. She is the correspondent for Austria’s largest weekly magazine, NEWS.

			Senta Radax-Ziegler, Author Senta Radax-Ziegler, PhD, works as a journalist in Vienna, Austria. For the last 16 years, she has been an editor for Austria’s largest magazine, NEWS. She specializes in portraits and features of national and international personalities. In the years 2005 and 2007, she was voted best society journalist of Austria. In 1986 -1988, when the Austrian UN-General Secretary Kurt Waldheim was accused of Nazi crimes and Austria had to fess up to their involvement in the Nazi felonies and the Holocaust, Senta Radax-Ziegler went on a personal mission to find Austrian holocaust survivors who escaped Austria after Kristallnacht. Her search brought her to the USA, Great Britain, Italy, and Israel. The survivors were children when they had to flee Austria in 1938/39, but their experiences of that time have lived on in them to this very day. In interviews she found out about their personal stories, the persecutions and humiliations, but also their strength and hopes. This material lead to the book: Sie Kamen Durch - Das Schicksal zehn jüdischer Kinder und Jugendlicher, die 1938/39 aus Österreich flüchten mussten (Ueberreuter, 1988) The book has been translated into English by one of the interviewees, Walter Kominik, and his wife Margot Deckel. They Made It Alive is available for publishing in the USA.




	Credits Produced and Directed by Evie Sullivan Edited by Raul Davalos, A.C.E. Music by Oscar Bustillo Photography by Brett Mann and Orly Arava Narrated by Brian McIntire Historical facts: Dr. Michael Berenbaum Based on a book "Sie Kamen Durch" by Senta Radax Ziegler Special thanks to • Martin Weiss, Consul General of Austria in Los Angeles • Mark A. Rothman, Executive Director, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust • Henriette Alban • Tracy Popenhagen • Dustin Slaughter • Marta Valier Website Design: Boxx Media, Inc.

		ANNIE WAGNER LAMPL Annie Wagner Lampl was born into an upper-middle class family on October 27, 1917 in Vienna. Her father was the director of the Austrian Wood Export Company and one of the biggest lumber exporters of Austria. When the Nazis came into power in 1938, he lost his position to an “Aryan”. Thereafter, he escaped to London where he lived in abject poverty. Annie's mother had died in January 1938, so she and her sister were left alone in their apartment in Vienna with their cook who took care of them. The night of November 9th, Annie stayed safely at the very large apartment of her future parents-in-law Bettina and Leopold Lampl, but it was clear she had to leave Vienna in order to stay alive. As a member of the Jewish sports club Hakoah, Annie was in their famous swim team and also won medals in track and field. Leaving her sports and Hakoah behind her was a major heartbreak for Annie. In December 1938 she was able to embark on the German freighter 'Isar' from Antwerp and traveled via the Panama canal to Los Angeles. She arrived on January 20, 1939 and reunited with her Sepp Lampl, an aerospace engineer, who had immigrated to America in July 1938. They got married on January 25, 1939 and lived together until 2000 when Sepp died of a major stroke. Annie lost her eyesight 40 years ago but managed thereafter to become a licensed psychotherapist helping adults who experienced a similar fate. In 1992 she was awarded the 'best volunteer prize' and also got awards for her weaving as a blind person. At age 91, she is active, uses her pool, and enjoys Viennese cooking.

		FREDERIC MORTON Frederic Morton was born Fritz Mandelbaum on October 5, 1924, in Vienna, Austria. After Kristallnacht, his father was deported to Dachau but released four months later. The family – his parents, himself and his younger brother – were able to escape in 1939 first to Britain, and the following year they came to New York. Frederic Morton has been living as a writer in New York and has published twelve books, two of which The Rothschilds and A Nervous Splendor have been national book award finalists. Morton's work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1965 as well as in The Best American Essays 2003.

		EGON SCHWARZ Professor Egon Schwarz was born on August 8, 1922 in Vienna to Jewish parents. His father was a business man and a loyal Austrian. When the German troops marched into Austria on March 12, 1938 and occupied the country, his mother was visiting her parents in Czechoslovakia. Egon was alone in Vienna with his father, when Nazi neighbors threw them out of their apartment. Thereafter, he and his father entered Czechoslovakia illegally to reunite with Egon’s mother. From there they were able to attain visas for Bolivia via Paris. Bolivia? "Where on earth is Bolivia?", they were thinking. At least, it was a safe haven where he first supported himself in various menial occupations including peddler and miner in the high Andes. In 1949, Schwarz was finally able to realize his dream and came to the United States, where he attained a PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle. He's been a professor of German language and literature as well as comparative literature at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.

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	Contact info: Kristall Productions Evie Sullivan, Producer 19545 Sherman Way Unit 26 Reseda, CA 91335 Tel.: 818-773-1133 Email: info@kristallnachtremembered.com

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Kristallnacht - "Night of Broken Glass"

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