HOHENAU

HOHENAU, town in N.W. Lower Austria, near the Czechoslovak border. Documents dating from 1620 make the first mention of Jews in Hohenau and the existence of a synagogue was recorded in 1638. Between 1652 and 1666 six Jewish families lived in the town. With the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna in 1670, the Hohenau community also ceased to exist. It was reestablished after 1861, and a cemetery was consecrated in 1879. With the establishment of a sugar refinery the whole town prospered; the Jewish founder later served as mayor. When the cemetery was desecrated in 1933, the Catholic priest took his congregation to hold a service there. In 1934, 70 Jews lived in Hohenau; they were forced to move to Vienna in 1938 because of the town's proximity to the border, and 26 members of the community later died in Nazi extermination camps. Only one Jew returned to Hohenau after World War II. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Moses, Die Juden in Níederoesterreich (1935), index; Nakler-Dasche, in: Zeitschrift fuer die Geschichte der Juden, 2 (1965), 145–8. (M.La.)