January 27, 2025
The following column originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.
By Teresa Drenick
AJC Northern California Deputy Director
This month, a year after submitting detailed paperwork, I was granted Austrian citizenship.
I have no intention of leaving the United States. But I pursued dual citizenship because my dad, Dr. Ernst Drenick, the son of a Jewish father and Catholic mother, was born and raised in Vienna — but was forced to flee the country in 1938. His story, like that of so many European Jews, is filled with loss and tragedy — too involved to fully narrate here. In life, he was frustratingly reluctant to talk about his experiences before the war, his flight from Austria to New York or the years that followed.
For years, the thought of applying for citizenship flickered in my mind like a lamp with bad wiring. Brightest was always near days of remembrance of the Holocaust. After years of procrastination, I was driven to submit my application as I witnessed an alarming increase in incidents of antisemitism in my hometown, Oakland. I wondered how closely this paralleled the atmosphere in my dad’s experience in Vienna in the run-up to the Holocaust.
This led to the thought that maybe, if I accepted Austria’s offer of reparation, I would feel a sense of reclaiming something stolen from my father. Maybe becoming a Jewish Austrian citizen would, in a small way, fill a void created by the violent antisemitism that drove most of my family from that country and killed those who remained.
His conflicted relationship with the nation of his birth revealed itself in many ways. He told magical stories of climbing and skiing down Alpine peaks, of the smell of roasted chestnuts on snowy Viennese streets, of summers spent hiking Austria’s trails.
But all these stories came to an abrupt halt and gave way to quiet grief. He refused to speak of the horrors that unfolded around him as his family desperately sought to escape the unfolding catastrophe.
My uncle helped fill in the narrative gaps, providing me with a cache of letters written by my grandfather to his brother in New York — which documented their struggles throughout 1938, culminating in the tragedy of Kristallnacht. My grandfather, in poor health and unfit to travel, knew his sons, then in their early 20’s, would not leave Austria without him. The last of the correspondence is his suicide note dated November 9, 1938 — Kristallnacht:
“My Dear Ones,” he wrote “Today’s events are proof that my presence has become a danger to you. Farewell. You have shown me nothing but goodness and love. Do not be distracted from your work by my going. Hurry!”
His father dead and his mother and youngest brother in hiding in Yugoslavia, my dad made his way to New York where he completed medical school at New York University and joined the U.S. Army. Sent right back to Europe, he cared for soldiers on the front lines, was present at the liberation of concentration camps and served as the medical officer at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.
Last week, I received a large package in the mail with the official document certifying my new status as an “Austrian Citizen living abroad” and a letter from the ministry with a paragraph that is still echoing in my mind: “…In light of Austria’s responsibility in dealing with the darkest sides of its history, this is a significant step forward. For our country, your citizenship means even more. It opens the door to giving you back an important part of the family history to the descendants of those who were cruelly stripped of their identity and legitimate rights decades ago.”
These sentiments were largely echoed by Austria’s consul in San Francisco, Isabella Tomas, who told me: “In recognition of its historical responsibility, the Austrian Parliament passed an amendment to the Citizenship Act and since 2020, descendants of people persecuted by the Nazi regime can obtain citizenship.”
“Due to terror and persecution by the Nazi regime, in which many Austrians took part, 126,000 to 128,000 Jews had to leave their homeland. Over 64,000 Jewish Austrians lost their lives as victims of the Holocaust. The expulsion and murder of Jews left an irreparable void.”
Since the law was enacted, Tomas said, Austria has processed more than 45,700 requests for citizenship; of these, more than 17,500 come from Israel, 6,900 from the US — more than 2,300 from California alone — and 4,700 from the United Kingdom. Other countries with large numbers include Argentina, Australia, Canada and Mexico.
On January 27 — Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year falls eight decades after the liberation of Auschwitz — I hope to stand next to Ms. Tomas as the ceremonial candles are lit in San Francisco.
The interconnectedness of the commemoration and my granting of citizenship is profoundly rooted in remembrance and reparation. It also offers descendants like me a chance to imagine what our lives might have been like if the global community had acted swiftly and unconditionally against the antisemitic furor of the 1930s — a poignant reminder of the importance of acting against antisemitism today.
