My wife, son and I spent two and a half weeks of July in Central Europe, visiting five countries, with the most time in Austria, where my son and I became dual citizens on July 18th. A few hours after receiving our documents, accompanied by my Paris-based sister in an office of Vienna’s provincial government, we saw a performance of Don Giovanni outside the Upper Belvedere, a palace built by Prince Eugen of Savoy, a military genius with a taste for the ornate. The conductor came out beforehand and spoke in German and English, explaining that the orchestra would be out of sight 120 meters away, with the singers seeing him on a screen. The splendid music was set against a dramatic backdrop, including projections on the palace’s ex interior walls. Afterward I called “Bravo,” particularly for the Commendatore, his face a ghostly white, who brought a long-evaded reckoning to a con artist and sexual abuser.
We flew into Berlin and took a seven-hour train to Vienna. I’d barely been to Austria before, on a 1990 side trip to Innsbruck while traveling around Germany with my mother, months after my father died. I grew up wary of Austria, based on my family’s ordeal under the Nazis. My father had a jaundiced view of his former country, though he visited a couple of decades after he’d fled in 1939 at age 14. My uncle Bob, who was eight when the family left via train to Hamburg and ship to the Dominican Republic, refused to set foot in Austria or Germany again. Both were irritated by Nacht ϋber Wien (Night over Vienna), a 1980s book by a fellow Jewish émigré who closed his harrowing story with enthusiasm about Austria. I believe, however, that my late father and uncle would be pleased that Austria decided—by unanimous legislative vote in 2019—to amend its citizenship law so descendants of the persecuted are eligible; and that my son and I regained something wrongly taken from our family.
My son DeWitt and I were granted citizenship retroactive to November 1st, the date our application was filed. We received a warm welcome at the government office, the official who’d handled the application waiting by the elevators to make sure we found our way. The meeting was celebratory and informative, my son and I sitting in chairs at the head of a table. Usually, the recipients receive their papers through a diplomatic office in the nation where they live (I’ll still go the New York consulate to apply for a passport and register to vote), but the approval’s timing, shortly before a planned trip to Vienna for DeWitt to compete in the International Geography Championships, was fortuitous.
International Academic Competitions, an organization headed by peripatetic couple David and Nolwenn Madden, and initially funded by his Jeopardy! winnings, runs the geography contest, as well as events in other subjects. DeWitt’s results included gold in “the battery,” a geography test of 400 questions, and silver in a simulation of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, where he played the role of Bavaria after the Napoleonic Wars. Taking the podium, DeWitt waved flags of both Austria and New Jersey. Parents and others can compete in an adult division but are given easier challenges—such as a 300-question version of the battery, also given to elementary schoolers—as they don’t necessarily have their kids’ acumen; I got a few awards, including silver on the battery, and we won gold as a family in a “scavenger hunt” that involved puzzles and activities around the city.
We spent a week in Vienna, consistently ranked among the world’s most livable cities. High points included the Capuchin Crypt, where prominent Habsburgs are buried, and the Imperial Treasury, with centuries of artifacts of wealth and power. We took day trips to Hungary and Slovakia. Points of interest included a faceless statue of an anonymous chronicler of Hungarian history in Budapest, and a space-age structure called UFO in Bratislava. I’d troubled thoughts about current events—Weltschmerz, or world-pain—in mid-July, as U.S. politics seemed headed toward the Viktor Orbán model of democratic backsliding, but Kamala Harris’ emergence as presumptive Democratic nominee later lightened my mood.
After the competition, we went on an IAC-led tour with stops in Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany, ending in Berlin. Krems and Dürnstein are charming towns in Austria’s Wachau Valley, along the Donau or Danube. Apricots, the area’s key crop, manifest in assorted cakes and drinks. Moving into Czechia, we had dinner in picturesque Česky Krumlov (where I found out about Joe Biden’s withdrawal just after I saw the languid bears that live in the castle’s moat) and stayed at České Budějovice, known as Budweis in German, the town where Budweiser has its origins.
I’ve an affinity for Central European food, happily eating meat and pastries. My beer consumption on this trip may rival the total of the rest of the year. The Czech Republic has the world’s highest per-capita consumption of the beverage, and beer there often is cheaper than non-alcoholic alternatives. Certain American perceptions about German culture—pretzels, large beer, lederhosen—are really about Bavaria, reflecting that the U.S. postwar zone of occupation was in Germany’s south. Nonetheless, in Berlin, we came across a Hofbräu München, outpost of Bavarian culinary culture, where I drank a gigantic beer.
In Germany, we were mostly in former East Germany, except when in former West Berlin. Activities in Berlin included an exhilaratingly frenetic bike tour, as well as a walking tour focused on the Berlin Wall. We spent the last day outside Berlin in the city of Potsdam, which includes Sansoucci, Frederick the Great’s charming palace and gardens; Schloss Cecilenhof, where Truman, Churchill and Stalin met in the summer of 1945, after Germany had surrendered but with Japan still in the war; and the House of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials planned the Holocaust, now a grimly educational exhibit. On a brighter note, in Berlin, we were led on an excellent tour of the Egypt section of the Neues Museum by Sean Briody, a history teacher who’s tutored my son and holds a rare major in Egyptology.
—Follow Kenneth Silber on X: @kennethsilber
