23

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Collection:

Source available in English

19

FRIDAY

A letter from home

Maria Wolf writes to her husband, Arthur, away on business in Czechoslovakia

Vienna/Tannwald

For Arthur Wolf, a fervent Austrian patriot and veteran of WWI, the Nazi takeover of Austria in March meant the collapse of his world, the loss of his homeland and equal rights. Wolf was the manager of a textile factory in Tannwald (then Czechoslovakia). His Russian-born wife, Maria, had stayed behind in Austria with the couple’s son, Erich (b. 1923). Given recent events, the tone of Maria’s April 19 letter to Arthur is remarkably playful. She marvels about 15 year-old Erich’s poetry, speaks warmly about their mother-son relationship and expresses longing for Arthur, avoiding any obvious references to current events.

TAGS: Anschluss, April 19, children, family, family separation, letter, Tannwald, Vienna, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Arthur Wolf Papers, AR 25270

Collection:

Original:

Box 2, folder 5

17

SUNDAY

Watch what you say

A friend advises caution in correspondence

“According to all experience, it is more than justified if your wife is extremely cautious in correspondence and asks you to be cautious, too. The mere suspicion of spreading ‘atrocity propaganda’ is enough to get one into serious difficulties.”

London

A WWI veteran, Alfred Schütz had studied law, sociology, and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Since the late 1920s, he had worked for the international banking house Reitler & Co. During the German invasion of Austria, he happened to be on a business trip to France. He opted to stay abroad, leaving behind his wife and child. A friend who had visited Vienna from London writes about his conversation with Schütz’s wife, Ilse. In his letter, he dissuades Alfred from returning to Austria due to the new regime’s attitude of suspicion towards the international banking industry. In light of the impending danger, a temporary separation from his family seemed like a better option to Schütz than coming back to Vienna.

TAGS: Anschluss, April 17, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, letter, London, Paris, persecution, prominent people, refugees, Vienna, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Alfred Schutz Collection, AR 25500

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 18

14

THURSDAY

Persecution in Austria, release from Dachau

Nazis in Austria pass a series of laws and directives

Vienna

Little more than a month after the Nazi takeover of Austria, a cascade of new regulations and actions taken by the new regime leaves little room for optimism. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports for April 14 from Vienna that Jews within 50 kilometers of the Czechoslovak border are to be expelled. Nazi commissars will be put in charge of Austrian businesses at the latter’s expense. According to the JTA, in the case of hundreds of Jewish-owned businesses, this provision has already been enforced. Finally, a law has been introduced establishing new procedures for determining the racial status of illegitimate children. The one positive item in this substantial dispatch is the prospect that all Jews currently interned at the Dachau concentration camp will not only be released but will also receive permits to enter Palestine.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, April 14, Aryanization, children, Concentration Camps, Dachau, dispossession, economic persecution, expulsion, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, Palestine, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

“Jews Along Entire Czechoslovak Border Slated for Expulsion by Nazis”

Collection:

Source available in English

10

SUNDAY

Forgone conclusion

Austrians (except for Jews) ratify the Anschluss

“A person who exercizes the right to vote even though he is barred from the right to vote, or is aware of descending from three fully Jewish grandparents, or as a person of mixed blood (at least two Jewish grandparents) married to a Jewish person, must immediately return this voter ID to the city hall and abstain from voting. Otherwise, he will be subject to severe punishment.”

Vienna

The entry of German troops into Austria on March 12 had preempted Chancellor Schuschnigg’s planned plebiscite on unification with Germany on March 13. The Nazis rescheduled the referendum for April 10 in conjunction with the first all-German Reichstag elections. Catholic bishops, under the leadership of Archbishop Theodor Innitzer, had issued a “solemn declaration” in which they called upon Catholic voters to cast their ballots in favor of the “Anschluss.” According to official figures, close to 100% of voters affirmed what was already an established fact. The document presented here is a voter ID to be used only by the addressee named on the front page. It explicitly excludes Jews from participating.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, April 10, Church, document, ID, Nazi policies, politics, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Voter ID for referendum on April 10, 1938 (no. 225)

Original:

Inv. No. 26028/9

8

MONDAY

Change of heart

Once friendly to the Jews, a Catholic priest decries “uninvited guests.”

“Nobody called the Jews to the countries of Europe. They came as uninvited guests and pushed themselves so strongly to the forefront of all public professions, not always by excellent performances, that the least one can say is there came to exist a gross disproportion.”

VIENNA

In Austria’s new reality, opinions could change very quickly. In a news item from April 8, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Catholic clergyman, Pastor Breckle of Trinity Church in Vienna, wrote an article in “Catholic Action,” that referred to the Jews as “uninvited guests” in Europe. Breckle accused the Jews of “pushing themselves to the forefront” and praised Hitler’s approach as “free and humane.” Breckle had until recently been considered friendly toward the Jewish community.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, April 8, Church, Hate speech, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

“Austrian Catholic Organ Attacks Jews; Lauds Hitler’s ‘solution’”

Collection:

Source available in English

5

TUESDAY

One man can only do so much

An Austrian in Buffalo overwhelmed by calls for aid

“Yesterday, within a single day, I received a whopping 11 requests for immigration affidavits, among them requests from mutual friends.”

Buffalo, New York/Vienna

Thanks to a Rockefeller fellowship awarded to him in 1933, the distinguished Viennese economist Fritz Machlup had left Austria years before the “Anschluss.” In 1935, he was appointed Professor of Economics at the University of Buffalo. As was to be expected, after the Nazis established their hold in Austria, friends and colleagues pinned their hopes on him as a guarantor. In this April 5 missive to his friend Alfred Schütz, he expresses concern that his letters of support might lose credibility because he had written so many, but nevertheless includes a note in English offering to assist Schütz in establishing himself in the US.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, April 5, Buffalo NY, emigration, immigration procedures, letter, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, transnational networks, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Alfred Schutz Collection, AR 25500

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 17

1

FRIDAY

Hotel Métropole

A luxury hotel turned Gestapo quarters

Vienna

Situated on Morzinplatz in Vienna’s central 1st District, the Hotel Métropole had been built for the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873. The luxurious building, designed by architects Carl Schumann and Ludwig Tischler, boasted a magnificent dining room and a splendorous inner court. After the Annexation of Austria, the Gestapo confiscated the hotel from its Jewish owners, and on April 1, 1938, the secret police began operations in their new headquarters in Vienna. With a staff of 900, it was the largest of the Gestapo offices in the Reich. The first order issued from the new headquarters was to transport a group of Austrian prisoners to the Dachau concentration camp. This photograph shows a tablecloth used at Hotel Métropole in better days.

TAGS: Anschluss, April 1, Concentration Camps, Dachau, dispossession, economic persecution, imprisonment, Jewish property, Nazi policies, photo, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Tablecloth from Hotel Metropol

Original:

Inv. No. 20526

30

WEDNESDAY

No coming back

Polish parliament passes a new bill against Jewish returnees

“The law will affect thousands of Jews living in Austria, Germany, Palestine and elsewhere.”

Warsaw

In the wake of Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, the Polish parliament (“Sejm”), fearing the return of up to 20,000 Polish citizens from Austria, passed a bill according to which Poles who had lived abroad for more than five years were to lose their citizenship. The situation of the Jews had improved somewhat under the Piłsudski government (1926–1935), but after the marshal’s death, especially in the atmosphere created by the “Camp of National Unity” (from 1937 onward), antisemitism was resurgent. Universities applied quotas to Jewish students and introduced “ghetto benches” for them, Jews were held responsible for the Great Depression, Jewish business were boycotted and looted, and hundreds of Jews were physically harmed, some killed.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, economic persecution, Great Depression, Journalism, JTA, March 30, media coverage, Polenaktion, Polish-born Jews, politics, public sphere, violence, warsaw, Zbaszyn

SOURCE

Institution:

“Poland Enacts Law Denationalizing Thousands Living Abroad”

Collection:

Source available in English

28

MONDAY

As far away as possible

Applications for immigration in the Australian consulate reach a new high

“The British consulate general admitted the would-be emigrants in groups of a hundred, giving out applications for visas and information on requirements for settlement in all parts of the British empire.”

Vienna

More than two weeks had passed since the Nazi takeover in Austria. The initial shock and disbelief among Jews had given way to despair and panic. Many reacted by seeking information about visa requirements for countries like the United States, Great Britain and Australia, which promised a safe haven and sufficient distance from the dramatic new situation in Austria. Between March 24 and 28, the Australian consulate alone received 6,000 applications for immigration—a number which considerably exceeded the country’s official immigration quota.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, immigration procedures, Journalism, JTA, March 28, media coverage, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

“Goering’s Warning Sends Thousands to U.S., British Consulates in Rush for Visas” „Goering’s Warning Sends Thousands to U.S., British Consulates in Rush for Visas“

Collection:

Source available in English

25

FRIDAY

Lost at home

Austrian Jewry and the US Consulate in Vienna

“Hundreds came in the belief that the United States was prepared to admit and to pay the passage of 20,000 immigrants. Consular authorities addressed groups of applicants, explaining the real situation.”

Vienna

In another dramatic report from Vienna, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes panicked Jews flocking to the US Consulate hoping in vain to receive some kind of support. Especially prominent Jewish citizens faced harassment and arrest by the secret police. Austrian Jewish leaders were forced to inform the police about their activities, while their German counterparts were unable to come to their support due to border restrictions. The situation of thousands of Jewish actors had become so desperate that even the Nazi representative of the Austrian Theater Guild acknowledged it and permitted a campaign in their support.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, artists, emigration, immigration, Journalism, JTA, March 25, media coverage, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

“2,000 Jam U.S. Consulate at Vienna, Seek Visas”

Collection:

Source available in English

Chronology of major events in 1938

Roosevelt’s call for a conference on refugee crisis raises hopes

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Library of Congress.

In response to the dramatic rise in the number of refugees, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt calls for an international conference. Following the annexation of Austria by the German Reich on March 12, 1938, the number of people fleeing from the National Socialists rises significantly. By now, however, most countries have become unwilling to accept more refugees, placing victims of Nazi persecution in a desperate situation. Since 1933, two agencies under the auspices of the League of Nations—the Nansen International Office for Refugees and the High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany in Lucerne, have worked to solve the refugee crisis without success. The conference will convene July 6–15 at Évian-les-Bains, France.

View chronology of major events in 1938

23

WEDNESDAY

Soma Morgenstern

A man of letters meets an old friend in exile

Vienna/Paris

Soma Morgenstern held a doctorate in law, but he preferred making a living as a writer, authoring feuilletons on music and theater. Born in Eastern Galicia and fluent in several languages, including Ukrainian and Yiddish, he chose German for his journalistic and literary endeavors. After his dismissal in 1933 from the Frankurter Zeitung, whose culture correspondent he had been while based in Vienna, he barely managed to stay afloat with occasional journalistic work. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany made his situation entirely untenable. He was forced into emigration, leaving behind his wife, a child, and many manuscripts. By March 23 he had made his way to safety in Paris, where he stayed at the Hôtel de la Poste with another famous Galician exile, his old friend, the author Joseph Roth.

TAGS: Anschluss, children, displacement, emigration, Journalism, March 23, Paris, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, refugees, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Portrait of Soma Morgenstern, Photograph by Otto E. Nelson, undated. Soma Morgenstern Collection, AR 6350

Collection:

Original:

F 001

20

SUNDAY

Branded

Defamation spills over to Austria

Vienna

This stereoscopic image from March 1938 shows a lingerie store in Vienna with a sticker that says “Jewish business” attached to its window. Immediately after the German Army’s entry into Austria, celebrated in many places, on March 12, 1938, the local Jewish population began to suffer from the same kind of defamation as German Jews had since 1933. The picture is part of the Sammlung Schönstein (Schönstein Collection) at the German Historical Museum. At the beginning of the 1930s, Otto Schönstein (1891–1958) of Nuremberg established his Raumbild Verlag, which published albums of stereoscopic photographs. In 1937, Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s “personal photographer,” became involved in the publishing house, which was showing signs of economic difficulties, and used it for the dissemination of NS propaganda.

TAGS: Anschluss, economic persecution, March 20, Nazi policies, photo, propaganda, public sphere, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Collection:

Image of a Lingerie shop in Vienna

Original:

Inv. No. Schönstein 4207

18

FRIDAY

A new mission for World Jewry

Bratislava's Jewish paper calls for solidarity with Austrian Jews

“Austrian Jews have an old tradition as fully equal citizens who have always put their forces into the service of their homeland and have contributed to the latter's prosperity in all economic, social, and cultural fields”.

Vienna

The entire front page of Bratislava’s German-language religious-Zionist “Allgemeine Jüdische Zeitung” is dedicated to the Anschluss. Jews are called upon to stand by their Austrian coreligionists. An anonymous source notes the impoverished state of many Jews in Austrian lands and the resulting need to restructure social services as well as address the increasingly urgent issues of occupational retraining and emigration. The reader is reminded that Austria is still a member of the League of Nations and that Austrian law stipulates equal rights for religious and national minorities. Among other sources quoted is the British Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Butler, who reports having received assurances that the German government would “endeavor to achieve a moderation” of its policy towards minorities. The paper also reports that the President of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Wise, has appealed to the League of Nations to help Austrian Jewry. The rest of the picture is bleak: newspapers suspended, prominent Jews arrested, a Jewish theater closed, Jewish physicians dismissed, and other chicanery. The paper calls upon Jews everywhere to come to the aid of their Austrian brethren.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Bratislava, commentary, cultural life, impoverishment, Jewish Community, Journalism, League of Nations, March 18, media coverage, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, politics, press article, prominent people, rabbis, Vienna, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Nationalsozialistisches Regime in Ősterreich, Allgemeine Jüdische Zeitung, Vol. 6, p. 1.

Collection:

Original:

Vol. 6, p. 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

The National Socialists arrest 150 public figures

A raid on the Jewish Community offices in Vienna on March 18, 1938. Bundesarchiv Bild 152-05 - 15A.

The spring of 1938 is marked by a series of assaults on Jews in Vienna and a number of other European cities. These Anschluss pogroms constitute an escalation of the National Socialist policy of persecution. Citizens humiliate, bully, and attack Jews publicly. Shortly after the Annexation, National Socialists in Austria arrest about 150 public figures. A third of those arrested are Jews, including writer Heinrich Jacob, librettist Fritz Löhner-Beda, cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum, Social-Democratic politician and lawyer Robert Danneberg, laywer Jakob Ehrlich, lawyer and president of the Jewish Community in Vienna, Desider Friedmann, and spice dealer Hans Kotányi. In April, the National Socialists will deport the group in an action referred to as the Prominententransport (“VIP-transport”). It will be the first deportation to the concentration camp Dachau.

View chronology of major events in 1938

15

TUESDAY

Hitler’s Homecoming

Adolph Marcus reacts to Hitler's return to Linz

“From day to day the anxiety among the personnel is growing [...].”

Linz

From March 12 to 14, Hitler visited Linz, which he had considered his home town since his adolescence there. In his address to the local populace he stylized himself as the enforcer of the people’s will and invoked the German soldiers’ “willingness to sacrifice” and the “greatness and glory” of the German people. While many reacted with enthusiasm, others were seized by fear. In his diary, Adolph Markus captures the anxious atmosphere at his workplace in Linz days after the “Anschluss.”

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, economic persecution, Linz, March 15, prominent people, public sphere

SOURCE

Institution:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Collection:

Chronology of major events in 1938

Adolf Hitler celebrates the annexation of Austria

Central Linz, Austria, following the Anschluss. Time Inc.

The Heldenplatz in Vienna is crowded when Adolf Hitler hails “the accession of my homeland to the German Reich.” According to the Führer, the annexation of Austria places the country in its proper role as a “bulwark” of the Reich. Hitler challenges the Austrian people to never let themselves be “exceeded by anyone anywhere in their fidelity to the greater German national community.” Many newspapers carry the speech the following morning, including Vienna’s Volks-Zeitung, whose masthead is henceforth emblazoned with a swastika.

View chronology of major events in 1938

13

SUNDAY

Discrimination and arrests

One day after the Anschluss, hostility against Austrian Jews escalates

Vienna

After their triumphant entry into Austria, the Nazis lost no time in intimidating the country’s Jews and forcing them out of positions of influence and out of society at large. Prominent bankers and businessmen were arrested, other Jews—especially those employed in fields that were considered “Jewish,” such as the theater and the press—removed from office and replaced by “Aryans.” At the same time that the atmosphere in Austria became unbearably hostile towards Jews, organizations aiming to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine were raided and it was announced that the passports of “certain people” would be voided. It bears mentioning that the number of Jews in Austria in March 1938 was about 206,000—no more than 3% of the total population.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Aryanization, emigration, imprisonment, Journalism, JTA, March 13, media coverage, Palestine, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, Vienna, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

“Drive Launched to Reduce Jews to Reich Status”

Collection:

Source available in English

12

SATURDAY

The Unthinkable

Emotional reaction of one Austrian Jew to the Anschluss

“What yesterday seemed to me barely fathomable, a thought which I would thrust aside so that it would not enter my mind, is no longer a matter of trepidation and grief to me: emigration.”

Vienna

In spite of numerous signals that Austria was changing its political course, the Anschluss on March 12 caught many Austrian Jewish citizens by surprise. One of them was 25-year-old law graduate Paul Steiner. As is often the case with witnesses of cataclysmic historical events, he did not understand the magnitude of the change until it was a fact. On the day of the Anschluss, he expressed feelings of disbelief in his diary. Within just a few hours of the historical change, Steiner’s love and commitment to Austria changed into a feeling of indifference and alienation. Not seeing any hope in the new Austrian political reality, he made the quick but rational decision to leave his native land as soon as possible.

Follow a 24-hour multimedia reconstruction of the Annexation of Austria online at www.zeituhr1938.at

Live from March 11, 2018, 18:00 until March 12, 2018, 18:00 (Central European Time)

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, emigration, March 12, politics, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Paul Steiner Collection, AR 25208

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 7

Chronology of major events in 1938

The Annexation of Austria

Austrian women cheering the arrival of German troops during the Anschluss. Time Inc.

In reaction to German threats, the Austrian president Wilhelm Miklas convenes an independent but pro-Nazi government headed by Arthur Seyß-Inquart, which governs from March 11–13. The Wehrmacht, the SS, and police invade Austria on March 12. At the command of Adolf Hitler, Austria’s National Socialist government begins the process of annexation, in which Austria is to merge gradually yet completely with the German Reich. National Socialism will rule in Vienna and its surroundings until the Red Army arrives in mid-April 1945. The Declaration of Independence will nullify the Annexation on April 27, 1945. In many other part of Austria, however, it will be the end of the Second World War in May 1945 that finally brings an end to National Socialism.

View chronology of major events in 1938

11

FRIDAY

Calm before the storm

No one knows what tomorrow will bring

“The streets are strangely calm, "Calm before the storm." At five p.m. there are swastika flags on display on some buildings (Meyerzett House). According to a radio report, the Austrian government has resigned and Seyß-Inquart is said to have assumed power. Deeply upset, we are rushing home from the shop.”

Linz

Adolph Markus lived in Linz, Austria with his wife and two children. One month before the “Anschluss” (the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938), he started keeping a diary which offers a gripping account of the growing tension. The situation was changing from day to day, and the Jews could only guess what would happen next. One day before the annexation, Markus wrote in his diary: “The streets are strangely calm. ‘Calm before the storm.’”

Follow a 24-hour multimedia reconstruction of the Annexation of Austria online at www.zeituhr1938.at

Live from March 11, 2018, 18:00 until March 12, 2018, 18:00 (Central European Time)

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, Linz, March 11, politics

SOURCE

Institution:

Diary, February 1938 – December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Collection:

Source available in English

9

WEDNESDAY

All hands on deck

The World Zionist Executive meets in London

London

The newspaper Die Stimme was considered the official mouthpiece of the National Zionist Committee in Austria. In its March 9 issue, it quotes a JTA report on the conference of the World Zionist Executive in London. Although tensions in Austria were running high, the conference had other pressing matters on its agenda, such as immigration to Palestine and changes in the British attitude towards it. Among the proposals discussed were lowering the price of the shekel in a number of Eastern European countries and establishing coordinating councils for Zionist activities.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, immigration, Journalism, JTA, London, March 9, media coverage, Palestine, politics, press article, Vienna, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

"Die Sitzung des Aktionskomitees.”, Die Stimme, Vol. 1, no. 742, p. 1.

7

MONDAY

Tie Game

Hakoah Wien and Jewish sports culture

Vienna

The soccer team Hakoah Wien’s match against SV Straßenbahn Wien, the sports club of the Vienna tramway company, ended in a 2:2 tie on March 7, 1938. Hakoah was part of the famous Viennese Jewish sports club, Sportverein Hakoah Wien. The club had been established in 1909 as a result of the changing attitude towards the body and health in the liberal Jewish community. This membership card belonged to one of the club’s foremost coaches, the swim coach Zsigo Wertheimer. Wertheimer had coached Ruth Langer, who famously refused to join the Austrian Olympic team in 1936, when she was just 15 years old.

TAGS: Anschluss, ID, Jewish Community, March 7, politics, prominent people, Sports, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Membership card of Fatherland Front of Zsigo Wertheimer

Original:

Inv. No. 16776

6

SUNDAY

Antisemitism in Austria

Reports by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Vienna

In 1933, the “Fatherland Front” had been established as the sole representative body of Austrian citizenry and as a replacement for parliamentary democracy. It had strong ties to the Catholic Church and was deeply antisemitic. Nevertheless, there were Jews among its ranks, and it saw itself as opposed to the (Protestant-dominated) Nazis. When Nazi groups, clearly emboldened by their recently improved status, took to the streets, proudly parading with swastikas, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on an antisemitic demonstration at the University of Vienna, an institution where anti-Jewish sentiment had been rampant for centuries. On the same day, the news agency informed its readership about counter demonstrations organized by the Vaterländische Front.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Church, Journalism, JTA, March 6, media coverage, politics, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

“Nazis Demonstrate in Jewish Quarters and Vienna University”

Collection:

Source available in English

4

FRIDAY

Parochet, dark-blue

The last days of the Jewish Institute for the Blind in Vienna

Vienna

This dark blue parochet (curtain for covering the Torah Ark in a synagogue) is part of the collection of the Israelitisches Blindeninstitut (Jewish Institute for the Blind) in Vienna. The institution was established in 1871 with the purpose of educating blind Jewish students. Professions taught ranged from manual occupations to translating and interpreting. Due to its excellent reputation, the school attracted students not only from Austria, but also from most other European countries. March 4 was one of its last days of undisturbed activity.

TAGS: Anschluss, art, Disability, Jewish Community, March 4, religion, Synagogues, Vienna, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Parochet

Original:

Inv. No. 2837

28

MONDAY

Confidence in chancellor Schuschnigg

Therapeutic Optimism

“We always had and continue to have full confidence in our Chancellor, in his open heart, fair-mindedness and sincerity. That confidence was strengthened after Thursday's declaration emphasizing that the government will stand by the Constitution of May, 1934.”

Vienna

At the end of February 1938, there still seemed to be at least a few rays of hope for Austrian Jewry. In a sermon at the Vienna Central Synagogue, Chief Rabbi Israel Taglicht expressed the confidence of Austrian Jewry in Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg. A few days earlier, the Chancellor had asserted that Austria would hold fast to the principles of the Constitution of May 1934, which granted Jews equality before the law and religious freedom. About the same time, the pro-Nazi mayor of Graz had been dismissed for raising a swastika flag over City Hall. To prevent Nazi demonstrations, the University of Graz and the Technical College had been temporarily closed.

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, February 28, Graz, Jewish Community, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, politics, rabbis, religion, Synagogues, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

“Austrian Jews Express Confidence in Schuschnigg; Nazi Mayor Ousted”

Collection:

Source available in English

20

SUNDAY

Imminent danger

Dark premonitions fill the pages of the diary of a Jew from Linz

“Meanwhile the Nazi demonstrations are taking on ever-expanding dimensions, making the immense threat to Austria appear closer and closer.”

Linz

The Austrian Adolph Markus had started a diary on January 12, the day Hitler forced the “Berchtesgaden Treaty” on the Austrian chancellor, Schuschnigg. The treaty stipulated the release of National-Socialist prisoners, gave free rein to Nazi political organizing, and granted a greater measure of participation in government activities to their political representatives. Markus personally witnessed the thuggish behaviour of the released prisoners and their reception by sympathizers in the streets of Linz. In his diary entry on February 20, he records the events of the preceding day and reveals his worries for his country.

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, February 20, Linz, Nazi policies, prominent people, public sphere

SOURCE

Institution:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Collection:

Source available in English

12

SATURDAY

Mouth of the Hydra

Old debates about Zionism and assimilation take on a new urgency in an atmosphere of heightened antisemitism

“It was the arrival of Jewish-nationalist Zionism and Poland's unification with Russian territories—with the ‘Litvaks’— that first opened the filth-spewing maw of the antisemitic Hydra. It is political Zionism that gave them the idea of an ‘alien’ people.”

Warsaw

One month before Anschluss, the Austrian-Jewish weekly Die Wahrheit, exhorts Austrian Jews to learn from the development of antisemitism in Poland. The Vienna-based paper, which, since the twenties had increasingly advocated integration and distanced itself from Zionism, perceived Zionism as a dangerous breach with Polish-Jewish history: in the past, says the author of this article, Jews in Poland stood out with their patriotism and commitment to matters of national concern. He opines that their turning towards Palestine creates the impression of a lack of loyalty, thus giving ammunition to Jew-haters. Moreover, the article accuses Zionists of exerting undue pressure upon dissenters.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, commentary, February 12, Journalism, media coverage, Palestine, press article, Vienna, warsaw, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

„Das Erwachen,“ Die Wahrheit, Jg. 1938, Nr. 7, S. 5.

9

WEDNESDAY

Frightening figures

The demographic change of the Jewish Community in Vienna

Vienna

The figures computed by the registry office of the Vienna Jewish Community and published here in the Jewish paper Die Stimme paint a bleak picture: between 1923 and 1937, the number of Jews in Vienna had decreased from 201,208 to around 167,000. The notice specifically mentions emigration between 1935 and 1936. Moreover, probably as a result both of the general insecurity and the changed age structure of the community, the number of births among Austrian Jews had gone down from 2,733 in 1923 to a mere 720 in 1937. Among the 2,824 deaths in 1937, 105 are entered as suicides.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, February 9, Jewish Community, Journalism, media coverage, press article, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

“Der Rückgang der jüdischen Bevölkerung Wiens” Die Stimme, Vol. 19, no. 730, February 9, 1938.

3

THURSDAY

Unprotected

The Jewish community of Vienna faces its dissolution—700 years after the granting of the Privilege of Protection

Vienna

This photograph shows a picturesque bird’s-eye view of Vienna’s 1st municipal district. At the beginning of 1938, the Austrian capital was still home to almost 170,000 Jews and 80,000 members of mixed (Christian-Jewish) marriages. Jews made up about 10 percent of Vienna’s population. The majority of local Jews were well integrated into Austrian society: not only was German their native tongue, they also shaped the cultural and social landscape of the city. Among them were the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, the Albanologist Norbert Jokl, the author Friedrich Torberg, and the composer Arnold Schoenberg.

TAGS: Anschluss, February 3, Jewish Community, photo, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution: