iState Hall of the Austrian National Library (Prunksaal)Innere Stadt
Bridge of Humanity. Austria and the 1956 Hungarian Uprising
Previously unpublished photographs of Austria's humanitarian response in 1956, when some 200,000 Hungarian refugees crossed the border seeking asylum.
More in Vienna
The Library's press image for this show is a 1956 photograph of Hungarian refugees being transported to Andau. After Soviet troops invaded Hungary on 4 November 1956, around 200,000 people fled across the border into Austria.
The Library calls this a compact exhibition of Austrian press photographs, many previously unpublished. They cover escapes on foot across fields, border stations, crossings of the Einser-Kanal, arrivals at the Traiskirchen reception camp, trains departing and fundraising for the refugees. In one you stand on a Vienna street corner reading the collectors' placards: anyone poorer than the refugees, one says, needn't give. The press release adds that solidarity sat alongside uncertainty and rejection. Erich Lessing's Budapest contact sheet, the Library's current Special Exhibit, is shown within it.
It runs to 10 January. Entry is included in State Hall admission at €12, and under-19s are free. The hall stays open until 21:00 on Thursdays, but closes at 15:00 on 30 October and 14:00 on 19 November.
Editor's pick
Previously unpublished photographs of Austria's humanitarian response in 1956, when some 200,000 Hungarian refugees crossed the border seeking asylum.
Look for
The transport to Andau
In Franz Blaha's flash-lit night shot, women in coats and berets crowd behind the wooden side of a vehicle, one looking straight into the lens.
Over the Einser-Kanal at Pamhagen
In Harry Weber's picture a man braces a woman in a knitted cap as she edges along a log over the water, gripping a rope strung across.
The border station at Hegyeshalom
Look for the Hungarian flag with its centre cut out, flying over a smiling uniformed guard beneath the 'Zoll Vám Douane' sign.
Leaving by Danish train
Fritz Kern caught five young refugees squeezed into one carriage window, smiling, above the stencilled 'DSB Cm 2062' of the Danish State Railways.
Collecting on a Vienna corner
In Alfred Cermak's photograph men in overcoats drop coins into tins outside a WÖK public kitchen, under placards asking what freedom is worth to you.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
With kids
Under-19s enter free. The subject is the 1956 refugee crisis, told through photographs.
Also at State Hall of the Austrian National Library (Prunksaal)
On now nearby
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Image credits
8
- Bridge of Humanity. Austria and the 1956 Hungarian UprisingÖsterreichische Nationalbibliothek
- Otto Meets AlbertinaCourtesy of Albertina
- Picasso - Bacon: What It Feels Like to Be Human© Succession Picasso / Bildrecht, Vienna 2026, © Foto: bpk/Nationalgalerie, SMB, Museum Berggruen/ Jens Ziehe
- Her Story: Women Artists of the AlbertinaCourtesy of Albertina
- State Hall of the Austrian National Library (Prunksaal)Mirej / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT
- Theatermuseum (Palais Lobkowitz)Gryffindor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5
- AlbertinaC.Stadler/Bwag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Jewish Museum Vienna (Jüdisches Museum Wien)Sonja Bachmayer / Jewish Museum Vienna, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0