I was not put into a camp either in the März- [March] or the Novemberaktion in Vienna. In November, when I became aware of the events, I went to clarify some of the questions related to my emigration and to speed matters up at the relevant office, and from there not home but to a friend’s house. By chance as I was about to leave the house, it was searched and, following the question of whether I was a Jew, I was taken away by German SS men in full battledress. I will mention here that in my opinion I avoided imprisonment later because I lived with Turks and apparently the SS did not dare to enter their home.
I was thrust into a lorry in which there were a large number of heavily bleeding Jews. On getting out we were met by a double row of SS men standing ready for us on a flight of about 20-25 steps, equipped with all manner of implements, e.g. rubber truncheons etc. Whilst we went up the steps continuous curses were rained down upon us with such fury, cuts and blows that by the top of the steps we were all covered in blood. I was taken to a room with a tap and washed myself clean to some extent. My feet were in a pool of blood that showed me what had happened earlier in that room to my fellow believers.
I was then dragged into a second room, still half-unconscious and under loud insults, in which three obviously intellectual Jews were standing, passive and bleeding. For an introduction I received a slap round the face and had to stand against the wall to be interrogated. The SS man first asked me, “Jew do you know why you are here?” When I did not answer, because I was simply not physically able to do so, and also did not know what answer he wanted to hear, he asked again, “Jew, what happened in Paris?” On my reply that a Jewish boy had shot a German official, he said: “and that is why you will now be shot: a thousand Jews for each Aryan.” He then asked me what I was, and when I said “lawyer” he asked: “How many have you cheated, more than ten thousand?” He repeated the question five or six times, until because of loss of blood and energy all strength finally left me and I became insensible. Obviously now the concept was ruined for him and he only cried, “Out, Jew, go home!”
I dragged myself down the steps and then saw how two fellow believers, two from the three already mentioned, were beaten and dragged out of the room, what finally became of them and of the third I do not know. As I staggered down the steps, I was once again brutally beaten by SS men despite my awful condition, and kicked by two persons with heeled boots.
When I got back to my home, I hardly know how even now, I could not lie down because no place on my body was without wounds. My forehead was cut, I had large lumps at the back of my head, I could not move my legs, arms, shoulders and behind were swollen. Then, even though I was bleeding all over, I was put to bed and my landlords tried to obtain medical treatment for me. This was impossible because Jewish doctors were not there and Aryan ones did not come. At last on the following day a Jewish doctor who had been released came, and he established that my right side was completely paralysed and the left only partly mobile, the injuries came from rifle butts and blows from rubber truncheons and other implements.
I remained in bed for eight days and could only walk on crutches after 14 days. My brother was in Dachau, the replies that we were allowed to make to meagre letters from Dachau were so curtailed that we could only answer cards for cards and each letter with only one letter, whose scope could not stray outside that of the letter received.
In Dachau there were 12,000 prisoners, amongst them mayor of Vienna [Richard] Schmitz, who was employed building roads, and the son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
The greatest difficulties were made in obtaining papers for emigration, and their completion often so long delayed that e.g. the Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung became invalid and the process had to begin again. The Finanzamt, the police and the Gestapo impeded every correctly made application because in many cases they worked against each other.