Until 1945, the luxurious Philiphoff house stood at this place. Renting an apartment in Filpphof opposite the Opera House and the Albertina Gallery in the very center of Vienna was like living in Manhattan near Central Park. During the bombing of Vienna by the Allied forces in 1945, the building was completely destroyed and its ruins buried under them about 300 people. It was impossible to make out the debris and could not remove the bodies of all the victims. In 1947, when Mozart Grinn wrote his novel in a cafe, the Vienna city authorities decided to clear the square and create a memorial to the victims of war and fascism. This memorial consists of several compositions. One of them is a Jew kneeling and brushing the pavement of Vienna. That is how the Anschluss ended - the accession of Austria to the Third Reich in the spring of 1938. And it was from this that the victims of war and fascism began for the Austrians, only then did they not understand it yet. Translated with Google Translate