[A.] Austria
[6.2. Accession (Anschluss) 12 March 1938:
Anti-Semitic riots - Palestine office and
Zentralstelle (Central office)]
[1938: Accession
(Anschluss) and anti-Semitism under the German NS
administration]
Cardinal Innitzer's advice to all Catholics in this
Catholic country to vote for the Anschluss in the
plebiscite arranged by the Nazis to legalize their seizure
of the country, the Nazi promise to ex-socialists that
they would be given the positions that Jews held, and the
further Nazi promise to end unemployment - all this helped
cement Austro-German unity.
From the very start, Nazi anti-Jewish policies in Austria
were much more radical than those in Germany
[because of the frustration of the crash in 1873 and the
feeling to be German but not to belong to Germany, and in
some months should be done what in Germany had been done
in 5 years].
Within a matter of a (p.224)
few months Austria developed a process of Jewish
humiliation, discrimination, and expropriation that had
taken five years to develop in Germany
[by the new NS administration which was imported from
Germany and implemented over the Austrians].
[1938: NS Robbery of
Jewish property]
However, in many areas the Austrian Nazis went far beyond
what had been inflicted upon German Jews up to then.
Immediately following the Anschluss, "spontaneous"
anti-Semitic outrages by the population were encouraged by
Nazi stormtroopers. Jews were beaten in public, forced to
clean streets under especially humiliating circumstances,
and driven out of their apartments.
The expropriation of the property of the owners of 26,236
Jewish establishments in Austria started in May and June
1938. By November, 20 to 30 % of Jewish capital, valued at
about 100 million German marks, was in Nazi hands.
[Also the Swiss banks as "neutral" banks were
collaborating within the process of aryanization and did
not protect the Jewish bank accounts, as French and
"American" banks not did either].
[Incompetent Nazi bosses
bring down the companies]
Old-time Nazis became the new Nazi-nominated managers of
the Jewish shops; most of them were uneducated people, and
many were members of the Austrian underworld. They had no
notion of business methods and speedily brought the firms
to ruin.
[18 March 1938:
Installation of Gestapo in Vienna - IKG dissolved]
On March 18 [1938] the Gestapo opened a branch in Vienna
(Staatspolizeistelle, [State police office]). On that day
IKG was officially closed and its leaders arrested. A fine
of 300,000 shillings ($ 40,000) was levied upon the Jews -
an amount equivalent to the sum donated to the Schuschnigg
government to support it against Germany prior to the
Anschluss.
[March 1938: Eichmann and
Palestine office under Rothenberg set up in Vienna]
In March too Adolf Eichmann arrived on the scene; he was
responsible to the SD (SS security police
[Sicherheitsdienst]) leader of the Danube area on matters
pertaining to Jews. He nominated the head of the Palestine
office (the Vienna branch of the immigration department of
the Jewish Agency), Dr. Alois Rothenberg, to be in charge
of Palestine emigration affairs. His main aim was the
emigration of Jews, by any and all means, with the
greatest possible speed.
[10 Feb 1938: SS
propaganda for emigration of Austrian Jews]
The policy of forced emigration had been openly advocated
by the SS prior to the Anschluss; this seems to have been
in line with Hitler's own thinking.
On February 10, 1938, the SS journal,
Das Schwarze Korps
[The black corps], published an article entitled "Where
Should We Put the Jews?" (Wohin mit den Juden?). The
present rate of emigration, argued the Nazi paper, was not
enough.
[Jews in Germany are not
protesting against expulsion of Jews in Austria -
perspective Madagascar]
The Jews who remained in Germany were not anxious to have
their brethren, (p.225)
"the parasites",
(End note 5: For the significance of the term "parasite"
as applied to the Jews by the Nazis, see: Alexander Bein:
The Jewish Parasite; In: Leo Baeck Yearbook; London 1964,
9:3-40)
leave their present homes. Only the forced settlement of
the Jews in a country to which they would be directed
could solve the question - a hint at the Madagascar plans
then being publicized by the Polish government.
(End note 6: Julius Streicher, the notorious anti-Semite,
published a lead article entitled "Madagaskar" in the
January 1938 (no. 1) issue of his
Der Stürmer, together
with a cartoon of a Jew being driven from the world under
the caption "DAS ENDE" (The End)
[26 April 1938:
Völkischer Beobachter states all Jews have to leave
Germany by 1942]
After the Anschluss, the leading Nazi daily in Germany,
Der Völkische Beobachter
[The folkish observer], wrote on April 26, 1938, that all
Jews must be eliminated from Germany by 1942.
[Austria now also is Germany, and Austrians are Germans.
It was projected later to settle all the rest of the
Middle European Jews in Eastern Europe after a successful
Russia campaign, but this never was successful.
In: Chiari: Alltag hinter der Front, Droste 1998].
[1937: Inner German
deportation of 100s of Jews to Allenstein and
Schneidemühl and torture]
According to one source, a small experiment in forced
emigration was carried out in eastern and western Prussia
in 1937, in the areas of Allenstein (Olsztyn) and
Schneidemühl (Pil). The victims, a few 100 people in all,
were harassed constantly supervised, robbed of their
possessions, and driven to despair. The result was a panic
exodus.
(End note 7: 38-Germany, reports, 1937-1944, report for
October 1937)
[3 May 1938: Reopening of
IKG - 20,000 applications for emigration permits]
After the period of partly organized bestiality, Eichmann
allowed the reopening of IKG on May 3, 1938. In a very
short time, 20,000 heads of families applied for
emigration permits. This must have represented at least
40-50,000 individuals.
[Gestapo puts 1,600 Jews
into concentration camps]
To further the desire for emigration, the Gestapo arrested
about 1,600 Jews and sent them to the concentration camps
of Dachau and Buchenwald during the first three months of
Nazi rule. Many of these were wealthy Jews.
(End note 8:
-- Ibid. [38-Germany, reports, 1937-1944, report for
October 1937)]
-- Nathan Katz report of 8/25/38, where he says that there
were 1,700-1,800 such victims. Rosenkranz (op. cit., [The
Anschluss; In: Josef Frankel (editor): The Jews of
Austria], p.488) says the victims mentioned were prominent
Jews who had been blacklisted and arrested within two
days; they were sent to Dachau on May 30. It seems that
Katz was referring to the same group. As to the figure of
20,000 emigration applications, a report of 8/31/45 [31
August 1945] (Saly Mayer files 16), apparently written by
Löwenherz, puts them at 40,000 by 5/20/38 [20 May 1938];
-- Rosenkranz [Rosenkranz, Herbert: The Anschluss and the
Tragedy of Austrian Jewry, 1938-1945; In: Josef Frankel:
The Jews of Austria; London 1967], p.491)
[26 August 1938:
Installation of a Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration
(Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung)]
Finally, in August, Löwenherz himself suggested to
Eichmann that a central institution be established where
the Jews could get all the necessary papers to enable them
to leave the country. This was the genesis of Eichmann's
famous Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung, the
Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration, which made him
a paradigm of German efficiency in Jewish matters.
Set up on August 26, the Zentralstelle henceforth took
care of emigration procedures. Its method of operation was
simple: by the time the Jew had gone through its
procedures, he was left with no property except his ticket
out of the country. All his possessions had been "taken
care of" with German thoroughness (part of them,
incidentally, went to IKG so that the many poor people who
had no property could leave Austria). Also, IKG paid for
its many activities, mainly relief and vocational
retraining, from the emigrants' money). (p.226)
[In Eastern Europe for the Yiddish Jews there is NO such a
Zentralstelle. The German Jews should emigrate to
Palestine, the Yiddish not. There must be a big
manipulation of all this].
[Paralyzed "American"
Jewry in New York - JDC money for soup Jewish kitchens
in Austria]
The immediate reaction of the JDC central office in New
York to the Austrian disaster was consternation and
paralysis. Baerwald wrote to Jonah B. Wise a few days
after the Anschluss that at a meeting with leaders of the
American Jewish Committee "everybody reluctantly agreed
that nothing much can be done (in) connection (with the)
Austrian situation."
(End note 9: 8-21, Baerwald to Wise, 3/16/38 [16 March
1938])
Kahn, on the other hand, had no hesitation regarding the
need for action. Rosen volunteered to go to Vienna, and
when he came back to Paris on March 23 he reported having
spent several 1,000 dollars for soup kitchens through
friendly officials at the American mission. Of course much
more was needed. In the absence, at first, of an
officially active IKG, he demanded American government
intervention. Baerwald was not so sure; he thought that
"the best way for us to proceed is to cool down and to
wait for any new developments which may come out of
Washington."
(End note 10: Ibid. [8-21], Baerwald letters, 4/6/38 [6
April 1938] and 4/19/38 [19 April 1938])
However, nothing much materialized from that quarter.
In the meantime, Jews were starving and desperate.
[Jews in Burgenland
driven out of their homes]
What aroused public opinion, non-Jewish as well as Jewish,
was the plight of the Jews from six small towns in the
Austrian province of Burgenland, who were evicted from
their homes; some of them found temporary refuge on a boat
on the Danube [eventually with emigration by Istanbul to
Palestine]. Neither of the neighboring countries was
willing to receive these unfortunates; action was taken
against them "as though against the Black Plague".
(End note 11:
-- Executive Committee, file, Budget and Scope Committee,
8/18/38 [18. August 1938];
-- Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million
Died; New York 1968], p.205)
[Visits from JDC
representatives in Vienna]
Meanwhile, JDC's New York office was hoping that a
nonsectarian committee could be formed to deal with the
situation.
(End note 12: 8-21, Baerwald to Wise, 3/16/38 [16
March 1938])
When nothing came of it, the decision was taken to step in
with as much money as JDC had on hand. Apart from this
decision in principle, JDC tried very hard to find an
American Jew of some standing who would represent it in
Vienna. Further, it did not intend to send dollars into
Austria if that could possibly be avoided.
A number of prominent personalities were sent to Vienna
during the first months of the Anschluss: Joseph A. Rosen,
Alexander A. Landesco, Alfred Jaretzki, Jr., David J.
Schweitzer of the Paris (p.227)
office and others. Through them, JDC not only kept in
touch with the situation, but was able to contact Nazi
agents and try to influence their actions. The driblets of
aid that these American Jews were able to bring with them
and distribute, largely through the friendliness of Leland
Morris, the U.S. consul general, were quite inadequate.
(End note 13: R11, C.M. Levy, report on a trip to Vienna,
12/1/38-12/8/38 [1-8 December 1938])
[11 June 1938: Council
for German Jewry asks for order in emigration
proceedings in Austria]
On June 11 the Council for German Jewry in London
(theoretically representing JDC as well) intervened with
the German Embassy in Britain to ask for the introduction
of order into emigration proceedings.
(End note 14:
[June 1938: JDC money for
Austrian Jews]
IKG, reopened on May 3, was desperately trying to cope
with the disastrous situation. By that time JDC was clear
about its obligation to support Kahn's policy of maximum
aid. In June JDC appropriated a sum of $ 250,000 for
Austria. The sum of $ 431,438 was actually expended in
Austria by the end of the year, however, or 10 % of the
total JDC spending for that year.
(End not 15: JDC's total expenditure in 1938 came to $
4,112,979)
