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FROM THE CENTROPA ARCHIVE

Kitty Schrott

Photo title: Kitty Schrott, her father Karl,
and Inge Hauser in the Prater
Photo taken in: Vienna, Austria (1939)
Time of interview: 2005
Interviewee: Kitty Schrott
Interviewer Tanja Eckstein

When I was out for a walk with my father or grandfather, I was never allowed to stop at large gatherings. There were military parades and one made sure not to be part of them and to attract as little attention as possible. One day my mom came home, telling us that Jews were being forced to clean the sidewalk and that she had narrowly escaped.

As a Jew you were no longer allowed to enter the parks, not even the Prater. Liese, the daughter of Michael and Lotte Eisinger, was very pretty, about 20 years old and didn't look Jewish at all. Even before 1938 we had gone to the cinema together and watched a movie with Shirley Temple - it was my first movie. Although Jews were expressly forbidden to do so, Liese went to the Prater with me for a merry-go-round ride. I, of course, didn't know that we were doing something that was forbidden. Everyone was relieved when we returned unharmed.

I also went to the Prater together with my dad and my cousin Inge once, but no one recognized us. Once my grandfather and I took a walk along the Prater Hauptallee, and I remember being chased away; I was five years old at the time. I lived with a certain feeling of fear, but, of course, I didn't understand what was happening.