Some buildings quietly hold history within their walls. At Berggasse 6 in Vienna, Austria, that history is anything but quiet.
The structure, built in the mid-1850s, is owned by the Catholic Schottenstift Abbey. Its ground floor is home to a pizzeria run by a Palestinian owner. And from 1896 to 1898, the building served as the residence of Theodor Herzl, one of the founding figures of modern Zionism. Adding yet another layer to its complex past, several Jewish residents connected to the building were later deported and killed during the Holocaust.
A commemorative plaque honoring Herzl stands near the building — unveiled by Israeli President Isaac Herzog just one month before the October 7 massacre. The plaque has since been vandalized with red markings.
Where Zionism Became a Movement
On January 6, 1897, Herzl wrote in his diary: “The road from Palestine to Paris is beginning to pass through my room.” Though he lived at the address for only two years, his apartment in Vienna’s 9th District became a critical hub for the push to establish a Jewish state.
Dr. Daniel Polisar, executive vice president and co-founder of Shalem College in Jerusalem, described the apartment’s significance to The Media Line: “In a very real sense, his home was also the central office of the Zionist movement. But you could also say that from his home, he built the Jewish state. A large number of the most important meetings took place there. A lot of the most important work took place there. A lot of his writing took place there.”
Polisar, who served as the founding chairman of the National Council for the Commemoration of the Legacy of Theodor Herzl, called the period Herzl spent at the building “the peak of his activity.” During those years, Herzl launched the newspaper Die Welt, organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, and later coordinated activities for the newly established World Zionist Organization — including hosting its executive meetings — all from that address.
Herzl also received diplomatic figures there. A diary entry dated December 13, 1896, included a letter in which he offered to welcome Prussian Minister of War Julius von Verdy du Vernois to his home to argue the case for a Jewish state. He also met with Jewish community leaders including Dr. Joseph Samuel Bloch, an Austrian parliamentarian and rabbi; Rabbi Sigmund Gelbhaus, a Galicia-born scholar then active in Vienna; Sigmund Mayer, a Viennese Jewish merchant and communal leader from Pressburg; and J. K. Poznanski of Łódź, a wealthy Russian Polish Jewish industrialist.
The Residents Who Never Escaped
Decades after Herzl moved out, the building became linked to a far darker chapter. At least three Jewish residents were deported from Berggasse 6 and murdered during the Holocaust.
Hugo and Irene Roden were deported on July 14, 1942, to Terezín — the ghetto and concentration camp located in what is now Czechia. Of the 1,009 people on their transport, 950 perished, including Hugo. Irene was among 59 survivors of Terezín, but she was later sent to Auschwitz, where she was killed. The exact dates of their deaths remain unknown.
Three days after the Rodens were deported, Camilla Tandler was also removed from the building. She died at Auschwitz, her date of death also unknown.
Heinrich and Adele Kurtz, who had lived in the building in 1919, applied in 1939 for permission to emigrate to Mandatory Palestine, where Jewish immigration was controlled by British authorities at the time. They never made it to safety. Heinrich was transported from Terezín to Treblinka in September 1942, where he was killed. Adele died on February 23, 1942 — four months before her husband was deported from a different Vienna address. The cause of her death is not known.
A Palestinian Owner Beneath It All
Today, the closest most visitors can get to Herzl’s former apartment is Pizzeria Valentino, the restaurant occupying the building’s ground floor.
The irony of the address is hard to miss. The work Herzl did in the floors above, nearly 130 years ago, helped shape the life of the restaurant’s current owner — Hakim Hadid, a Palestinian.
In the very building where Zionism evolved from an idea into an organized political movement, Hadid keeps a framed photograph of himself with Yasser Arafat, the longtime leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and later president of the Palestinian Authority. Hadid said he had known Arafat since the age of 12, through an uncle who had a close relationship with the former leader.
When asked how he felt about the building’s history, Hadid told The Media Line simply: “Not good.”
Born in Nablus, the 67-year-old Hadid moved to Libya as an infant. He later came to Vienna to pursue a master’s degree at the Technical University of Vienna, but left the program after two years. He has now worked at the pizzeria for 43 years, spending the last 18 as its sole owner.
Hadid said visitors — including Israelis — frequently stop in to ask about the building’s past. He said he simply wants to be left in peace, adding that he sometimes gets the sense that people want him gone, and that Israelis “have already taken my house” in the West Bank. He also questioned why so much attention was paid to Herzl’s brief stay, given that he himself had been at the location for roughly four decades longer.
In his back office, taped near a printer, hangs a newspaper photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu beneath the German headline “Haftbefehl gegen Netanjahu” — which translates to “Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu.”
Despite the weight of his personal history, Hadid said he believes peace between Israelis and Palestinians is possible — a Palestinian state existing alongside a Jewish one. He views Israel as an “illegal” state, but acknowledges the reality that it is not going away.
He summed up his view of coexistence not as something warm, but as something unavoidable.
“We cannot kill all the Israelis,” Hadid said.
Interview translation provided by Prabhu Guptara and Clemens Öllinger.
