Uncle Anton in Vienna

Not my uncle. The uncle of a friend from synagogue. She had a dream about him last night... hadn't thought about him in years, she said. He was quite a character from her childhood. Some things she remembers are that he was a bachelor, he always dressed very stylishly, he was the assistant manager of the best theater in Vienna.

This was in the 1930s. Her family told him he should leave, it wasn't safe there anymore. He wouldn't leave: he was an important person in Vienna, he said. Nobody would touch the assistant manager of the best theater in the city. Besides, he wasn't even Jewish: he never attended synagogue and was secular in his beliefs.

He was taken to a concentration camp. My friend's family never heard from him again.