Wolfgang Sobotka, president of Austria’s parliament, steers his country from its Nazi past
Binyamin Rose, Vienna, Austria
Photos: Ouriel Morgensztern
Wolfgang Sobotka was 14 years old when his peers started taunting him, calling him “Nazi Bua,” street slang in Austria for “Nazi Boy.”
At first, the youthful Sobotka didn’t know what to make of it. This was in 1970, and World War II had been over for more than 25 years. Austria was an independent sovereign state that had long since cut the cord of its wartime ties with Nazi Germany. Austria’s Social Democratic Party was leading a stable parliamentary democracy, and its party chairman, Bruno Kreisky, had just become the country’s first Jewish chancellor.
What did Sobotka’s peers know that he didn’t?
“I had no idea what it meant, so I began to research my family,” Sobotka said.
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