Austrian Again: An Interview with Anne Hand
I recently had the opportunity to talk with Anne Hand about her experiences with the citizenship process, and writing her book,
“Austrian Again: Reclaiming a Lost Legacy.”
Like Anne, I also reclaimed my Austrian citizenship. This past April, I moved to Austria to finish the book I am working on about my family’s escape from Vienna in 1939, and how understanding their history has been instrumental in healing intergenerational trauma.
Naturally, I was intrigued by Anne’s story and her process. In it, Anne, “embarks on a deeply personal journey to uncover her family's hidden history during the Holocaust while pursuing Austrian citizenship.”
Has anything changed since you wrote the book and now? New thoughts, feelings, healing?
I finished writing the full manuscript of the book a couple of years ago. It took some time to find a publisher and then get the book out into the world, which seems to be normal. So, yes, definitely, things have changed in the world since mid-2023.
I’ve been struck by how much people have opened up to me about their own families’ experiences, particularly around immigration and adapting to wherever it is that they ended up. Movement has been in the news so much since borders reopened after Covid, and we can all relate to it no matter what our family story is.
I think the big question is whether we let ourselves dig deeper to understand more about what our ancestors experienced. Then, the next step is thinking about what we can take from those lessons into today’s world. I hope that Austrian Again helps people take that step.
I'm interested in that box you have of artifacts that you mention in the book. Have you been through all of it?
I have, and I’ve tried to make sense of what’s in there. The problem is that so many of the photographs and other family mementos were unlabeled. I’m sure my great grandmother or great aunts knew who everyone was, but we lost that last thread 25 years ago. So, trying to put the pieces back together when there’s not much to go on in many cases has been impossible.
We did what we could with the things we recognized. For example, we donated family letters and photographs from the 1920s and 1930s to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. With the photographs, even if we didn’t know who many of the people were, my hope is that new archival technologies will eventually allow the people in the photographs to be named, so they won’t be anonymous forever. That’s one important thing I took through from this process – the importance of naming people, and being clear about what they experienced, what happened to them, once you know.
What are your plans now that you've completed the restitution citizenship process?
Right now my plans are to support Austrian Again in its release process and share my experience with as many people as I can. I’m hoping to spark interesting conversations that get people thinking about the world we live in, and their place, or places, within it.
You, me, and anyone else who has gone through this process, we’re all experiencing a very unique situation. Part of the uniqueness is just because each of our families had a different story, with how they were able to flee the Nazi and Austrofascist regimes. But part of the uniqueness is very contemporary – nobody forced Austria to open up this pathway for people to reconnect. I’m not aware of any other country that decided to offer restitution citizenship 80+ years after persecuting a sizable minority of its citizens. It’s important to sit with that and help raise awareness that, even though we’re talking 3 or 4 generations down the line, this really does matter.
What would you say to others who are interested in restitution citizenship, or citizenship by descent?
Start researching about your family history and see where it goes! I think the value of doing this ends up being as much about that connection you have with family and their experiences as about citizenship. What you find may be different from the stories you grew up with as a child, which you have to be mentally prepared for, but that’s OK.
Doing this as an adult, you get a different sense of the worlds your ancestors came from and the worlds they created after they left, or fled, whatever their circumstances were. It gives you more empathy for them and what they experienced. It also creates more of a connection with people who find themselves in the middle of similar circumstances today, especially when the cause is political or economic circumstances beyond any one person’s control.
There are lots of folks like me who are also writing books about their experiences. What advice would you give them?
Keep at it. I had so much self-doubt throughout my process, especially if the story I was trying to tell was even worth telling. If anyone would care. Turns out, it was worth telling, and people do care.
Within that, you have to find what creation process works for you. Some people love their writers’ groups. Writers’ groups have never worked for me, and I just worked with a trusted friend on the first few rounds of drafts and edits, before eventually having a manuscript that felt like it was solid enough to send to publishers. Know what you need to keep pushing along, to keep picking away at your work a little bit every day. Even if you’re not writing every day, think about the story, think about the process, talk about it with someone. Every little bit gets you closer to a more finished project.
It’s so important to put our stories out there and let them be in the world. It’s so important for people to see their stories represented in the world. There are already so many gatekeepers. You don’t have to let your doubt turn you into one too.
Austrian Again: Reclaiming a Lost Legacy by Anne Hand is the first book to be published about someone undertaking the Austrian restoration citizenship experience. It’s available globally on Amazon, and additionally in the US on Bookshop and Barnes & Noble.