Research and book projekt
Persecution and Resistance of female Welfare Workers in Vienna 1934-1945
Biographies, Networks, Transfer of knowledge
In Red Vienna in the 1920s and 30s, the field of
social welfare expanded and a new profession for women emerged:
"Fürsorgerin".
Under Austrofascism and National Socialism, some of the welfare workers were persecuted because of their political convictions and/or Jewish origins. Through research in archives, in personal files and with descendants, 80 short biographies of Viennese women welfare workers were written, most of them for the first time.
Analysed with the method of collective biography, they show the differences and similarities in the context of persecution, deprivation of rights, expulsion and murder, but also the resistance and flight into exile and the accompanying transfer of knowledge. The book thus presents a previously missing perspective on the history of social work.
The research project was funded from 2020-2021 by the Future Fund and the National Fund of the Republic of Austria, and the FH Campus Wien.
In 2022, the project leader Irene Messinger was a research fellow of the City of Vienna.
The book will be published in 2024 at nomos.
For more information on the topic, see also "Lectures"
Under Austrofascism and National Socialism, some of the welfare workers were persecuted because of their political convictions and/or Jewish origins. Through research in archives, in personal files and with descendants, 80 short biographies of Viennese women welfare workers were written, most of them for the first time.
Analysed with the method of collective biography, they show the differences and similarities in the context of persecution, deprivation of rights, expulsion and murder, but also the resistance and flight into exile and the accompanying transfer of knowledge. The book thus presents a previously missing perspective on the history of social work.
The research project was funded from 2020-2021 by the Future Fund and the National Fund of the Republic of Austria, and the FH Campus Wien.
In 2022, the project leader Irene Messinger was a research fellow of the City of Vienna.
The book will be published in 2024 at nomos.
For more information on the topic, see also "Lectures"
2022
Transfer of knowledge: A case study of two
Viennese social workers in British exile. In: Bulletin of the Social Work History Network, Kings
College London, vol 8, nr.1, March 2022, 25 – 35. > article as PDF <
2021
Tracing Persecuted Social Workers during the 1930s in Vienna.
In: ERIS Journal 4/2021. Social Work History, Summer 2021, 36-52.
> article as PDF <