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Sources for the video

Municipal housing 1938: one sentence in the tenancy agreement

The Karl-Marx-Hof tenancy agreement contained a sentence that the Nazi city administration turned against the Mezei family in 1938: the Tenancy Act does not apply here. The Short tells in just over a minute how tenants persecuted as Jews lost their municipal flats this way; the long video follows, in 18 minutes, the law behind the sentence, other families and the question of why after 1945 no law gave the tenancies back. These are the sources of both films, for the Short statement by statement.

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Video · 1:13 · with sound, in German

What the video shows

In 1929 the Mezei family moves into the new Karl-Marx-Hof in Döbling, staircase 38: Moritz Mezei, a journalist and Social Democrat, his wife Margarethe and the twins Ilse and Kurt. On moving in, the tenants agree to a preprinted record, the tenancy agreement. It states that the provisions of the Tenancy Act do “keine Anwendung” (not apply), and that the period of notice is “eine 14 tägige” (fourteen days).

This was not an invention of the city. The Tenancy Act protected only buildings whose permit had been granted by 27 January 1917. Every later new building was exempt, private and municipal alike, and with it most of the municipal housing. In 1938 a private landlord in an older building still needed a legal ground to give notice. The Nazi city administration needed none in municipal housing.

On 14 June 1938 the Nazi deputy mayor Thomas Kozich gave the order to give notice to tenants in municipal housing who were persecuted as Jews. The notices went through the district courts, without stating grounds and with two weeks to leave. “Jude” (Jew) was written only on the form that stayed with the authority. According to the DÖW resistance archive, the Nazi city administration drove more than 3,600 people out of municipal flats in this way, 212 from the Karl-Marx-Hof alone.

Moritz Mezei objected; the objection was rejected. In early August 1938 the family had to vacate the flat; according to Wiener Wohnen’s memorial project, the building inspector noted “ohne Beanstandungen” (no complaints) at the handover. Moritz Mezei fled via Hungary to Italy and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. Ilse died on 12 March 1945 when a bomb hit the cellar of the Jewish Community in Seitenstettengasse. Kurt was taken from a cellar in Förstergasse by SS men on 12 April 1945 and shot. Only Margarethe Mezei survived, badly injured.

Today two plaques hang at the entrance at Boschstraße 9: since 2003 the plaque “Kündigungsgrund Nichtarier” (reason for notice: non-Aryan), since 14 June 2026 a second one with 46 names. Ilse, Kurt and Moritz Mezei are on both. The video ends with a question: is there a plaque in your courtyard?

The long video “Ein Satz im Mietvertrag: Die Vertreibung aus dem Gemeindebau 1938” (one sentence in the tenancy agreement: the expulsion from municipal housing in 1938) reads the law behind the sentence and shows why the exemption applied to every new building, private and municipal alike; according to the City of Vienna’s statistical yearbook, about one in five Viennese flats lay outside the Tenancy Act in 1934. It follows the Mezei family from staircase 38 to Förstergasse, visits other estates in Penzing, Simmering and Kaisermühlen, and asks why after 1945 no law gave back the tenancies that had been taken; in 2001 a report in Parliament called this “eine seit 1947 bestehende Lücke” (a gap existing since 1947). The white buildings are built from the City of Vienna’s open data and stand on the aerial image of autumn 1938. Here, too, every picture is real: photos from the Wien Museum, a home movie of the city centre around 1936/37, a US Army film of July 1945 and pages from books, the law gazette and Parliament.

The Short’s pictures are real: three photos of the Karl-Marx-Hof from around 1930 (Wien Museum), the City of Vienna’s aerial image of autumn 1938, flown after the notices, a page from Heinrich Steinitz’s account of tenancy law of 1929, and photos of the entrance and the plaque from June 2026. The bright areas in the view of all of Vienna are the municipal housing blocks built 1919 to 1937, as listed in the city’s dataset today; blocks that were destroyed or sold are missing from it. At the end the camera moves through Google’s photorealistic 3D of today to the entrance at Boschstraße 9.

Sources and image credits

Data

For the film we cropped, converted and redrew the data.

Google 3D

The Karl-Marx-Hof today, the descent from the top-down view to the entrance at Boschstraße 9 (both videos): Google’s photorealistic 3D. In the film the credit stays in the picture for as long as Google’s image is visible: Heute in 3D: Google Maps

Pictures

  1. Martin Gerlach jun. (photographer), 19., Heiligenstädter Straße 82-92 - Karl Marx-Hof, Blick in eine Durchfahrtsstraße, around 1930. Wien Museum, inv. no. 59241/1125. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: in the Short the first picture: without mount and colour chart, portrait crop, greyscale with a slightly warm tint, slow move into depth, darkened at the top beneath the title; in the long video as a flat print standing in the paper city (both videos).
  2. Unknown (photographer), Karl Ehn (architect), 19., Heiligenstädter Straße / Boschstraße / Halteraugasse - Karl-Marx-Hof, around 1930. Wien Museum, inv. no. 57962/424. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: in the Short cropped without the printed caption, greyscale with a slightly warm tint, slow move into depth, then blurred and darkened behind the quotation from the tenancy agreement; in the long video as a flat print standing in the paper city (both videos).
  3. Heinrich Steinitz (author), Das österreichische Mietrecht (p. 102, section “2. Anwendungsbereich des Mietengesetzes” (scope of the Tenancy Act), in: Ludwig Neumann (ed.), Das Wohnungswesen in Österreich), 1929. Wienbibliothek im Rathaus (Vienna City Library), digital.wienbibliothek.at. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: in the Short a crop of the page, slow move onto two lines, highlighter on “Baubewilligung erst nach dem 27. Jänner 1917” and “Mietengesetzes ausgenommen sind”; in the long video the whole page as a sheet above Heiligenstadt and a strip with the lines; the author died in 1942, the text is in the public domain (both videos).
  4. Heinrich Steinitz (author), Das österreichische Mietrecht (p. 103: “jede solche Vereinbarung ist vollkommen unwirksam” (any such agreement is entirely void), otherwise “lediglich das Mietrecht des allgemeinen bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches” applies (only the tenancy law of the Civil Code)), 1929. Wienbibliothek im Rathaus (Vienna City Library), digital.wienbibliothek.at. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: the whole page as a sheet above Heiligenstadt, highlighter on the two passages (long video).
  5. City of Vienna, Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Wien 1930 bis 1935 (p. 94, table 10: flats “außer dem Mietengesetze” (outside the Tenancy Act) in 1934; table 11: the city’s 69,001 flats at the end of 1934), volume 1930 to 1935. Wienbibliothek im Rathaus (Vienna City Library), digital.wienbibliothek.at. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: two strips from the tables, with the column “außer dem Mietengesetze” and the 69,001 marked (long video).
  6. unknown American traveller (home movie), Amateur Film European Trip 1930s, Part II, „Vagabonds Abroad“, Wathen Collection (Vienna around 1936/37: a tram on the Ring in front of Parliament, the State Opera, Kärntner Straße), around 1936/37 (inferred, not documented). Prelinger Archives, Internet Archive. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: three excerpts (2:24–2:28, 3:15–3:26, 3:40–3:44) as a print on paper, without sound (long video).
  7. Martin Gerlach jun. (photographer), 19., Heiligenstädter Straße 82-92 - Karl Marx-Hof, Kindergarten, around 1930. Wien Museum, inv. no. 93083/111. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: as a flat print standing in the paper city (long video).
  8. Martin Gerlach jun. (photographer), 22., Schüttaustraße 1-39 - Goethehof - Hofansicht, around 1931. Wien Museum, inv. no. 59161/48. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: as a flat print standing in the paper city (long video).
  9. Martin Gerlach jun. (photographer), 19., Heiligenstädterstr. 82-92 - Karl Marx-Hof, Blick auf den Kindergarten im Innenhof, around 1930. Wien Museum, inv. no. 59161/1790. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: in the Short without mount and colour chart, portrait crop, greyscale with a slightly warm tint, slow move into depth, slowly darker in the silence after the note; in the long video as a flat print standing in the paper city, likewise growing darker (both videos).
  10. German Reich (official law gazette), Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt 39T1 084 0864 (Reich Law Gazette 1939, part I, p. 864: the law on tenancies with Jews of 30 April 1939), 1939. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: strip with § 1, without emblems and signatures (long video).
  11. German Reich (official law gazette), Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt 39T1 167 1671 (Reich Law Gazette 1939, part I, p. 1671: the ordinance of 5 September 1939 extending the limits on notice to the former exemptions), 1939. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: strip with § 1, without emblems and signatures (long video).
  12. US Army Signal Corps, SCENES IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA (Vienna in the summer of 1945: a street with overhead wires, a street with tracks), 30 July 1945. National Archives, 111-ADC-5199, NAID 18998. Licence: National Archives: Restricted - Possibly. Change: two excerpts from 6:41–6:52 and 7:27–7:41 as a print on paper, without sound (long video).
  13. National Council, Constitutional Committee, 475 der Beilagen XXI. GP, Bericht des Verfassungsausschusses (p. 1, the line “eine seit 1947 bestehende Lücke” (a gap existing since 1947)), 2001. Austrian Parliament, parlament.gv.at. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: strip with the line marked; an official work is free (§ 7 Austrian Copyright Act) (long video).
  14. GuentherZ, Wien11 Lorystrasse038 2017-04-05 GuentherZ GD NS-Opfer 0715 (the plaque “Kündigungsgrund Nichtarier” (reason for notice: non-Aryan) of 22 September 1999 at the Alfons-Petzold-Hof, Lorystraße 38), 5 April 2017. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0. Change: framed as a print (long video).
  15. C.Stadler/Bwag, Döbling (Wien) - Karl-Marx-Hof, Gedenktafel für NS-Opfer (the 2003 plaque at the Karl-Marx-Hof, Boschstraße 9), 9 June 2018. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Change: only the top of the plaque, without the names, framed as a print; the crop is again under CC BY-SA 4.0 (long video).
  16. Feldkurat Katz, Eingang Karl-Marx-Hof Wien mit zwei Gedenktafeln 01 (the entrance at Boschstraße 9 with both plaques), 14 June 2026. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: in the Short it appears in perspective exactly at its place in Google’s facade and stays there; it darkens while the plaque grows out of it; in the long video full-frame with a slow move (both videos).
  17. Feldkurat Katz, Gedenktafel für die aus dem Karl-Marx-Hof vertriebenen und getöteten Jüdinnen und Juden 2026-06-14 01 (the plaque of 14 June 2026 with 46 names), 14 June 2026. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: in the Short it grows out of the photo of the entrance, then close on the Mezei names, blurred and darker below them, a green line beside the three names; in the long video full-frame, slow move onto the names (both videos).

AI, voice and music

Nothing in either film is painted with AI: the photos, archive films, aerial image, the pages from books, the law gazette and Parliament, the data and the quotations are real. In the Short the slight move into depth in the three photos from around 1930 is computed from each photo itself; an AI model (MoGe-2) estimates the distance of each pixel, nothing is painted in. In the long video the photos stand flat as prints in space, without depth estimation, and the white buildings are built from the City of Vienna’s open data. In both films only the voice is AI-generated: Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS (“Charon”). There is no music. Beneath the voice lies a quiet room tone, noise generated with ffmpeg, without AI; in the Short there is silence after the note “ohne Beanstandungen”, in the long video at two points.

Each statement in the Short and its sources

  1. In 1929 the Mezei family moved into the new Karl-Marx-Hof, staircase 38.

  2. The tenancy agreement said: the Tenancy Act does not apply here. On screen, the wording: “Die Bestimmungen des Mietengesetzes … finden … keine Anwendung. … die Kündigungsfrist eine 14 tägige.” (the provisions of the Tenancy Act do not apply; the period of notice is fourteen days)

    Only “Licht, Luft und Schatten” gives the wording of the clause, which is why the film shows it as a quotation with its source. The record is a tenancy arrangement (Mietübereinkommen); the film calls it a tenancy agreement.

  3. The law exempted all new buildings, private ones too: the Tenancy Act did not apply to buildings whose permit was granted after 27 January 1917.

    The clause was not an invention of the city; it restated the law. In 1938 a private landlord in an older building still needed a legal ground to give notice (Austrian Historical Commission, vol. 14, p. 217).

  4. In June 1938 Nazi deputy mayor Kozich gave the order to give notice to tenants persecuted as Jews. On screen: “14. Juni 1938 · Auftrag: NS-Vizebürgermeister Kozich” (order of the Nazi deputy mayor).

    The sources speak of an order, not a resolution.

  5. Without giving reasons: notice was given without stating grounds, with two weeks to leave, through the district courts.

  6. The files said “Jude” (Jew). Only on the form that stayed with the authority, not in the notice the tenants received.

    The forms also said “Volljude” (full Jew) or “Nichtarier” (non-Aryan). The Mezei family’s notice, shown by Wiener Wohnen’s memorial project, gives no reason and no “Jude”, which is why the film says “in the files”.

  7. In this way the Nazi city administration drove more than 3,600 people out of municipal flats. On screen: “aus Gemeindewohnungen vertrieben · mehr als 3.600 · Menschen, laut Widerstandsarchiv DÖW” (according to the DÖW resistance archive).

    The figure counts people, not flats. Flats given notice: more than 2,000 according to Raggam-Blesch (DÖW yearbook 2018, p. 81), about 2,000 according to the Austrian Historical Commission (vol. 14, p. 143).

  8. 212 here alone. On screen: “im Karl-Marx-Hof · 212 Menschen · laut Widerstandsarchiv DÖW” (in the Karl-Marx-Hof, 212 people, according to the DÖW resistance archive).

  9. In early August 1938 the Mezei family had to vacate their flat.

    The day differs (4 or 5 August), which is why the film says “early August”.

  10. The building inspector checked the flat and noted: “ohne Beanstandungen” (no complaints). On screen: note of the building inspector, 1938, according to Wiener Wohnen’s memorial project.

    Only Wiener Wohnen’s memorial project documents the note for the Mezei family; there is no second source for it, which is why the film names the project on screen. “Licht, Luft und Schatten” also documents that the building inspector checked the handovers.

  11. The father, Moritz, fled to Italy and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

  12. The daughter, Ilse, died in 1945 when a bomb hit the cellar of the Jewish Community (Kultusgemeinde). On screen: “Seitenstettengasse · Kultusgemeinde · 12. März 1945”.

    The house number differs (4, or 2 to 4), which is why the sign gives none.

  13. Her twin brother Kurt was shot by the SS in April 1945. On screen: “Förstergasse 7 · Leopoldstadt · 12. April 1945”.

  14. Only the mother, Margarethe, survived. On screen, the years of their lives: Moritz Mezei 1886–1944, Ilse and Kurt Mezei 1924–1945, Margarethe Mezei 1899–1993.

  15. The names of the three are here today, at the entrance at Boschstraße 9: on the plaque “Kündigungsgrund Nichtarier” (reason for notice: non-Aryan) of 2003 and on the plaque of 14 June 2026. On screen: “Tafel vom 14. Juni 2026 · 46 Namen · Boschstraße 9”.

    The film says “46 names” and does not count the murdered: the sources count differently, and the names include Ilse Mezei, who was killed when a bomb hit.

  16. The aerial image dates from autumn 1938: flown in October and November 1938, after the notices.

  17. On screen: “Jede helle Fläche: ein Gemeindebau, gebaut 1919–1937” (every bright area: a municipal housing block, built 1919–1937).

    The dataset lists today’s stock: municipal blocks that were destroyed or sold are missing from it. This is why the picture gives no number.

Literature and sources

How wohnwahn measures