Philip Halsmann, young Latvian Jew who was pardoned and released on the eve of Yom Kippur after having been under a four year prison sentence for patricide, will be compelled to leave Austria immediately, according to reports here. Young Halsmann, who for nearly three years had been the victim of an Austrian “Dreyfus” case, will not even be permitted a short stay in Vienna because the local authorities are determined not to allow the controversy over his guilt or innocence to be made an issue in the forthcoming elections.
Tasting free air again almost for the first time since the Summer of 1928 when he was arrested on a charge of murdering his father in the Tyrol mountains, Halsmann, suffering from tuberculosis contracted in prison, plans to go to Meran to take the cure. Pending his departure he will be closely watched by the authorities, it is said. It is impossible to establish whether the order for his expulsion results from the fact that when the Innsbruck court sentenced him at his second trial he was ordered to leave Austria at the expiration of his sentence, or whether the order is due to a decision on the part of Prince Starhemberg, Heimwehr leader and new minister of the interior.
In the meantime Halsmann remains secluded in his room at the Donaustadt Krems Hotel, only members of his family being permitted to see him while his lawyers are seeking a permit for a short stay in Austria. Failing in this Halsmann will seek a visa to Italy.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
