Directly after the “Anschluss” of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938 the National Socialists closed the Vienna Jewish Community (IKG - Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien) and imprisoned the leading Jewish functionaries in concentration camps. The IKG was restructured and reopened in May 1938. Due to the increasing exclusion, disenfranchisement and dispossession of the Austrian Jews, one of the most important tasks for the IKG was the care of the impoverished Jewish population and the organisation of mass emigration for those fleeing. These tasks could only be carried out through the forced collaboration with the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. With the end of the mass deportations at the end of October 1942, the IKG was disbanded. A so-called “Council of Elders of the Jews of Vienna” took over their responsibilities for the roughly 8000 Jews still in Vienna. In contrast to other areas of occupied Europe, the organisation was able to continue its activities until the end of the war.