JEWISH MISERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23690, 23 December 1938, Page 14

JEWISH MISERY

THEIR LIFE IN AUSTRIA SAVAGE TURNS OF NAZI SCREW BRUTAL TREATMENT News from Austria is fragmentary, and of that which reaches this country only a small part can be used, for even, the injured who have come out of the' i\azi hell often cannot openly speak about their experiences, having been told specifically that should such and such facts become known abroad So-and-so from, among their friends and relatives left in Austria would have to' bear the consequences, says a writer in the Manchester Gdardian. The deliberate destruction of the Jewish earning capacity naturally cannot be hidden, as, to some extent, it is brought about by open legislation, such as the recent ban on Jewish doctors. There are other regulations less- spectacular but affecting even greater numbers —for instance, the ban on Jewish, commercial travellers, this being so elastic a regulation that it is imposr, sible to gauge the limits to which Nazi ingenuity will gradually stretch it; Jews may soon be prevented from travelling on business. Even in the richest communities the earning capacity of their members forms an item as important as their capital, the value of capital assets being, moreover, often partly, or even wholly, dependent on the use made of them by their owners. But since the war the majority of the Vienna Jews and nonAryans have been poor, and they are now being deprived of their last possessions, sometimes even their household goods. At Two Hours’ Notice A regulation has been made in Vienna that Jews must not occupy houses, flats, or lodgings which face the street, as .they are forbidden to display German flags or emblems, and their houses would, therefore, be an eyesore on festive occasions. In the# parts of Vienna frequented by strangers the eviction of Jews is carried out in a quasi-legal manner, by their being given notice, etc. But elsewhere things are frequently done in the truest Nazi style. S.A. men enter the fiat and ask tne occupier whetner he is a Jew, ana, if he is, tell him that he has to clear out within two hours, after which they are going to return and take possession ox his domicile. There is clearly no time to'remove the furniture, especially as the same is probably happening xo all tne other Jews in that block of flats or in that street. The poor people escape, with the most scanty belongings, as from a fire or earthquake. Those who have still some money left crowd in, boarding houses in and round Vienna; of the poor, many are said to be camping on “ Dpnau-Auen,” islands in the Danube which have long been a refuge for the destitute. While the Evian Committee discusses the problem of capital transfer these people lose even their essential household goods. ,

Nothing to Transfer

With regard to the export of capital, regulations in Austria are now such ihat even were facilities -found- ■many; ,t wealthy people would have 'nothing to transfer. For a peculiarly refined turn of the screw ha? been given to the-25 per cent, tax which is levied on the capital of would-be emigrants even before the question of any transfer is broached; the tax in Austria is assessed on the value which their property represented on January 1, 1938, In other words, the Jew is made to pay capital tax on the value which his property had before the Nazis ruined it. In most cases this tax is bound to eat up the assets, pr it even offers a chance for demanding ransom if the person concerned is known to have friends or relatives abroad. As to personal belongings, there seems so far to be no settled practice; the writer knows of cases where the owners were allowed to take out their bona-fide personal belongings without having to pay any tax, but he knows of other cases where they had to pay a tax even "on such objects, the man. being told, for instance, that he would be allowed to take out two suits only, but would have to pay for the rest. According to the latest German regulations—but these seem ..to apply to the Old Reich only—Jews have to pay a tax, equal to the full value, on furniture, etc., acquired since 1933 that is to say, they have to buy their own property once more from the Nazis.

The present labour shortage in Germany (Germany lives on a war footing) has added another terror to the life, especially of the younger members, of the Jewish community; forced, labour under appalling conditions. t It Is all so plausible and full of the moral indignation and deep emotionalism in which the Nazis excel; naturally the “Jewish parasites" must be made to work; they must oe taught to work by the Nazis, but it goes without saying that German “ national sentiment ’’ would revolt against a Jew being allowed to work alongside Aryans, etc. The rest need not be enlarged upon; it is not work they want from the Jew; what they want is to humiliate and torture him, wreck him physically and morally, kill. him, or drive him to suicide. The case will be remembered of the Burgenland Jews driven out from their homes in April in a perfectly destitute condition, and placed on a breakwater in the Danube, between Austria and Czechoslovakia. These poor people found a few days’ hospitality on a French barge, and when that barge had to be removed a charitable Jew, to provide a temporary refuge, obtained for them a Greeic barge which happened to be available—no one then supposed that it would be required for long. It still stands next to the Hungarian bank of the river, some four miles from a small place called Rajka; 66 people, old and young, men and women, have lived since the end of April in this rat-infested barge. But even this is not sufficient to satisfy German sadism. On July 16 a party of Nazis raided the barge and indulged in an orgy of 111-treating and tormenting the Jews, who did not dare to defend themselves for fear of much worse things to come. It is not known , whether any further Nazi raids have occurred since.

The fate of these 66 in the barge is in a way symbolical of the fate of 500,000 Jews and a few hundred thousand non-Aryans in Germany and Austria, and while the Evian Committee discusses what to do with these many Hundred thousands, apparently nothing can be done to protect those 66 forlorn, truly landless individuals from the sadism of Nazis out to have some Nazi fun.