Linz area

‘We went into this camp, which was composed of people who had been driven away from Hof Gastein. This is a fashionable resort which suddenly had to be evacuated to accommodate tourists.It was decided that the ‘Israelites’ should move to Ebelsberg, the former factory premises of the Hermann-Goering works. This camp of Ebelsberg is a liveable place if it houses 1500 people; but with 5000 to 6000 human beings pressed into these barracks and two or three families in each room, the outwardly good appearance belies the picture inside. There was a young man in this camp, who came to us and said: ‘We want an ORT school in Ebelsberg’ (…)Then he mobilized 50 youngsters to start cleaning up an old building. He told the boys: ‘You will get no pay because we have no money but you will do something nice for ourselves’(…)With that the boys rolled up their sleeves and in eight days they fitted up a school in three-storey building, without the help of machines, with nothing but enthusiasm- but there was the school!’[1]

In April 1948 almost 25 per cent of the camp population was engaged in the ORT training and attended courses which included training workshop for electricity, shoe-upper manufacture and needle work, auto mechanics, locksmiths training, electro mechanics, cabinet making and goldsmiths training. ORT also published a magazine aimed at the camp's inhabitants- Ilustrirter ORT Magazin.  After 1949, Ebelsberg served as a collection point for those not being able to emigrate- invalids, chronically ill and those waiting for ill relatives before emigrating.

Wegscheid 'Camp Tyler’ DP camp was a transit camp opened in June 1946. It was the largest Jewish transit  camp in Austria and housed about 3,000 to 4,000 inhabitants, who were meant to stay there for a short period of time before moving on in their emigration route. The majority of DPs came from Poland and Romania. Due to a constant influx of infiltrees,  Wegscheid was seriously overcrowded and did not have anywhere near enough living space. There were also problems with inadequate food supplies and quality. 'Camp Tyler’ was widely regarded as a camp with particularly bad living conditions and additionally constant severe conflicts between the Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants. The DPs did however manage to forge some semblance of community life - there was for example a small hospital which conducted nursing courses as well as a kindergarten.  In the end of 1947 ORT started operating in Wegscheid a small annex to the Linz central school.  In May 1948 the school was training 45 students. It closed in 1949.