Back from whence we came?
I’m in a plane bumping through the skies toward Juneau, returning from Los Angeles. At my feet is a leather bag containing wafer-thin papers signed by Nazi storm troopers in 1938. One document informs my grandfather, the Jewish Doctor Rudolf Braun, he is no longer permitted to treat Aryan patients. Another document discharges his Aryan household staff because it is, according to the Third Reich, sullying to work for a Jew. I carried these documents to LA and to the Austrian consulate. I presented them alongside my birth certificate, my parents’ marriage certificate, my son’s birth certificate, my husband’s death certificate, and other papers produced by other units of government of various type and vintage. In 2020 Austria passed a law granting citizenship to victims of Nazi persecution and their direct descendants. Unlike most citizenship processes, this one does not require that one speak German, reside in or even visit Austria, take any test, or pay any fees. It is, the country says...
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