Amsterdam, 1st February 1939

The contemporary situation of the Jews in Austria

The following facts illuminate the current situation of the Jews in Austria. It is more than catastrophic.

The total population today consists of roughly 110,000 souls, but consisted of over 180,000 Jews at the Machtergreifung. At least 35,000 Jewish people are homeless. Of the c. 40,000 Jewish people who were in Vienna’s prisons, in the various concentration camps, Dachau, Buchenwald etc. c. 11,000 are still there today. The number of dead would not be given as too high at 1,000. Many were culled by the inhumane exertions, many were “auf der Flucht erschossen”. The Jews live in constant fear of arrest, and psychological breakdown is unavoidable as a result of the crippling situation. Of the 180,000 Jews living in Austria at the accession of the Hitler government, every second Jew over the age of 16 has been in prison.

Only in the rarest cases are children aged up to 14 years of age “taken along”; if one therefore deducts the number of children from these 180,000 souls, and the women, who were only arrested in small numbers, one comes to the shocking result that every second Jew filled the National Socialist prisons. This naked fact entails awful consequences. An indescribable feeling of panic seizes each Jew, which increases, because he must have the conviction that it will be his turn too. These purposeful and systematically carried-out arrests on the streets, at night in homes and suchlike also have one more very sad effect. As a result of cramming ten to twelve or more people in one room, which is hygienically bad, these people live in stuffy air, malnourished. In the shortest time possible they inevitably become unable to work, and therefore also unable to emigrate. Evacuation of these people at the earliest must happen if one still wants to prevent their doom in time.

Over 2,500 people are waiting to be moved to the expanded old people’s homes, and cannot find a place in this country because neither homes nor beds are available.

Of about 60,000 Jewish companies and businesses that were in Austria, barely 2,000 have been arisiert, the other 58,000 have utterly perished. The process of complete economic expulsion set in immediately after the Machtergreifung, there have been no more Jewish businesses at all since the pogrom days (10th November).

20 Tempel and 70 Bethäuser have been burned and destroyed, there are no longer any religious services in the places of worship, one cannot say Kaddish.

Restaurants, cafés, cinemas, theatres, concerts, public baths, gardens are closed to Jews. Jews are not allowed to sit on any of the benches within the city’s limits.

The perpetual house searches are carried out sadistically. Everything is smashed to pieces, torn apart, taken away.

Vorladungen or being taken to the Gestapo, and the perpetual agonising interrogations invariably provoke an indescribable feeling of panic.

Community life has ceased; of the 33 communities only seven remain in all of Austria today.

All, absolutely all, Jews are informed by one goal today: emigration. A methodical emigration carried out from abroad is not only in the interests of the Austrian Jews but also of Jews of the world. The “Sesshaftmachung”, which has been implemented for several years, is now being completed, because of the 110,000 Jews still living in Austria, roughly 35,000 have entry opportunities in various countries whilst the 60 to 65,000 Jews are in camps, camps to be annihilated at the earliest.

This solution is possible and is the prayer of the hour!