Report

On 14th March 1938 two people in plain clothes appeared at my home, arrested me and brought me to the police in a car in which there were SS men. There a record was made of my personal details, in particular statements taken because of my membership of a Freemasons’ Lodge. I was then taken to seven others in a cell where I met an eminent Vienna lawyer known to me, and the Justice Minister. The cell was normal in size, however extremely dirty and had only an open lavatory. The stay in the cell naturally mentally depressed us all terribly.

In the cell the light burned all night. During the second night I was suddenly called to the corridor where I found myself opposite an armed SS man who immediately bawled at me with the words, "Why are you lying down, Jew? I’ve lived in Frankfurt and know you Judengesindel." At these words, after he had removed his gloves he punched two powerful blows with such force against my jaw that he knocked out two of my teeth. I staggered back into the cell almost unconscious, and was comforted by the Minister with the words, "You must think to yourself it is like a rockfall in the mountains." On the following morning I was then taken for questioning at which now suddenly, instead of the accusation of membership of the Lodge, it was construed from some harmless letter or other that I was Socialist or Communist. My wife only learned where I am after a week, not even a school friend of mine who occupies a senior post in the Party and knew it precisely gave her information, he declared, "I am not even allowed to know his name otherwise tomorrow I shall be sitting in the cell next to him." The SS man who interrogated me was a particularly dapper, elegant tall person, he insulted me for three to three and a half hours with such words as "Schwein”, "Judenschwein”, "If you don’t talk I’ll hit you on the head with the chair." After my arrest at half past 9 in the evening several SS men appeared in front of my wife and our 20-year-old daughter, drove them out of bed and posed the most incredible questions to my wife who has been an employed doctor for 30 years. They began by asking, "How many German women have you deprived of their children, or don’t you perform abortions?" To our daughter they said, "You whore, how many men have you already infected? Do you also sell cocaine?" Turning to his companions he then said – we live in a well-furnished villa, "Judenhuren now live in such palaces.” He then asked about the purpose of the second bed in our shared bedroom and said, "You can easily have the second bed disposed of, your whore’s chap isn’t coming back, at 5 o’clock he’s already seeing already ten cold gun-barrels." The leader then looked at photographs in a carton and showed them round to his companions with comments like "Nigger face" and "Gypsy mug". After an hour they came back. The incident made such a frightful impression on my daughter that she said, "If they had shot all three of us that would have been better than this life." Then the men also took jewellery and a typewriter with them on their departure.

After we had been at the police station for five weeks – temporarily in individual cells where one had to sleep on the floor – we were brought to the Landesgericht and received meat there for the first time, in the form of a piece of sausage. At the police station the air in the cell was dreadful, so we experienced the few minutes when we were led to the yard as a blessing. In order to kill time we made chess and other games from bread crumbs; I then stayed another nine weeks in the prison of the Landesgericht and had to withstand four or five interrogations during this time.

I first received permission to write after ten to 14 days. The treatment at the Landesgericht was better as it was carried out by old Austrian officials. As nothing could be found against me at the various interrogations, something different was alleged against me every time, at my penultimate questioning with the Gestapo it was stated to me that now I was known to be a pacifist. At the final interrogation, which was carried out by a Reichsdeutscher in the presence of a senior Nazi official, I was asked how I imagined my future, when and where I wanted to go. I was given a two-month deadline, I should however be on my guard against spreading stories of atrocities, and sign a written declaration according to which I am permitted to make neither spoken nor written accounts of any kind about my experiences. The release formalities then lasted three or four more days. From my own experience I can also report the following:

A very rich manufacturer in Vienna was arrested in his villa and the negotiations – whether to shoot him through the mouth or how otherwise to dispose of him, possibly throw him into the water – were conducted in the presence of his wife and both their small children, because the men reopened the door to the children’s bedroom which the wife had closed. The woman had to bring out all the jewellery present in the house which was taken away with the justification, "It is certainly not safe enough with the police." The manufacturer in question was a Rittmeister and had high military decorations. A sacked employee, from whom this entire operation apparently stemmed, had become the Vizebürgermeister of Vienna. On the occasion of the nocturnal visit to the wife, the officers left behind a notebook which contained a list of Jews living in our neighbourhood, and the following letter:

"Dear Parents, it is now very pleasant in Vienna, I am well. We can take the Jews‘ money away from them all day, when I visit, I shall also bring something beautiful with me."

Reporter: Prof. Dr. Theodor Bauer (53 years) and his wife from Vienna, now Wassenaar