VIENNA: From 19th-century anti-Semitic caricatures to disinformation linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Rothschild international banking dynasty has been a favourite target of conspiracy theorists blaming it for the world’s ills.

Now an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Vienna seeks to debunk some of the wild rumours and explore why the Rothschild name continues to attract them, especially as some people on social media look for what they say is proof that the elite is making money out of the virus.

“We often hear the names of George Soros or Bill Gates, Jewish or non-Jewish people who are responsible for everything,” exhibition curator Tom Juncker told AFP.

“And the name Rothschild keeps coming up, although no specific Rothschild is named, but the name Rothschild is used as a wild card,” he added.

The fame — and conspiracy theories - that the Rothschilds have long drawn have their roots in the family’s success in banking.

With “their rapid success”, the Jewish family — which made its fortune setting up banks in the 1800s around Europe — became “the face of the emerging banking industry”, drawing public attention and comment, Juncker said.

The Rothschilds “have been made the culprits for certain shortcomings of the system, instead of attributing those to the speculative mechanisms of capitalism,” Juncker added.

Having risen from humble origins, the Rothschilds have made a decisive contribution to Europe thanks to “their very modern management”, said Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz, another curator of the exhibition, entitled “The Vienna Rothschilds. A Thriller”.

“It was a family from the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt. It all started with a small coin dealer who sent each of his five sons to European cities, including Vienna” in 1821, Kohlbauer-Fritz said.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was then plagued by recurring financial difficulties.

Salomon Rothschild quickly became indispensable to the monarchy and was ennobled, without giving in to assimilation and denying his Jewishness, according to the exhibition.

The Credit-Anstalt bank, state-of-the-art hospitals, a major foundation, sumptuous palaces, a train station, a garden — almost everything he and his descendants built in Vienna before Austria’s annexation by Adolf Hitler has disappeared today.It was not until 2016 that a Rothschild Square was inaugurated in Vienna to honour the family’s contribution.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2022