Leopoldstadt - Jewish Vienna beyond the Danube Canal

Leopoldstadt, Vienna's second district, was once the hub of Jewish life in Vienna. It boasted some of the town's finest synagogues, there was a wide array of Jewish shops, clubs, theatres and coffeehouses. The imposing Grain Exchange was a focal point of Jewish commercial interests. Leopoldstadt was also a central-European stronghold of Zionism and Chassidism. Sigmund Freud spent his youth there, composers such as Arnold Schönberg and Oscar Strauss were born there, also renowned dramatist Arthur Schnitzler and psychiatrist Victor Frankl, founder of Logotherapy and Holocaust survivor. Jewish life was brutally wiped by the Shoah, but new Jewish life has returned, particularly around Taborstrasse and Praterstrasse, the district?s commercial arteries.