Editor,
While the article by Don Knebel was pretty much accurate about what is special about Linz in Upper Austria, I must, as someone who lived 30 years of her life there and is co-author of a ‘Women’s Guide to Linz,’ protest against the headline.
Linz is a city that has done more than any other in Europe to deal with its unfortunate history in the Third Reich. No cultural festival or exhibition takes place without some acknowledgement of that part of its 20th century history. The city’s archives have invested in the publication of scholarly works on the issues of the ’30s and ’40s in the city, and they are available for everyone with interest in the topic to buy at a very reasonable price.
There are, it is true, some who wish to leave the chapter out of the record books. They are the ones who prefer to remember, if at all, that Hitler built the superhighways. They are a minority. Liberal or conservative, the majority of the residents of Linz do not forget the Third Reich any more than they forget the monarchy or the empire whose remnants are equally evident in the city.
Alison Brown, Carmel