To The Editor:
Hi, I read with much interest your 2 articles on Vienna and
its past a few weeks ago. My grandfather, Mr. Charles
(Klonimus) Richter comes from Vienna, so I faxed him a copy
of your articles. Although he is bli ayin hora 96
years old, his mind is 100 percent sharp. He enjoyed the
articles very much and remembered many of the stories and
people mentioned.
He says that the story about the fish in the cemetery wasn't
accurate and he told me the actual story which he heard when
he was young in Vienna (quite a few years ago). I asked him
if he would type it up and send it in to possibly be
printed.
He has an amazing recollection of those years (including
helping the Chofetz Chaim off the train at the First Knessia
Gedolah) and, being the son-in-law of Mr. Juluis Steinfeld, a
big askan with Agudah in Vienna, he was very involved
with hatzolah work during the war years. He also has a
tremendous collection of old siddurim which
themselves tell quite a story.
This is what he wrote:
There was a gerush of the Jews of Vienna in 1670
(5430). A rich Jew named Koppel Frankl paid 4000 Gulden and
entered into a contract with the City of Vienna in which the
city agreed to keep the Jewish cemetery intact, even in the
Jews' absence. Frankl had in his garden a piece of art work,
namely the fish made out of stone. Planning on coming back to
Vienna, he moved the art work temporarily to the cemetery.
This contract is still in the archives of the City of Vienna.
I have a copy of it, but unfortunately it is illegible. A
historian, Professor Wachstein, wrote a book about this old
cemetery, in which he writes the true story of the stone
fish.
Shloimy Lonner
Lakewood, NJ
