More than 225,000 Jews in Austria are in a precarous position as a result of the week of bloody fighting which has Just ended in Austria. “We are fighting for a united Christian country,” the clerical groups supporting the Dollfuss regime declared in a proelamation. No matter who wins in Austria now, whether it be the clerical-Heimwehr coalitoin, the Heimwehr alone or the Austrian Nazis, the Jews stand to lose. In the midst of the fight with the Austrian Socialists, the Dollfuss regime asked for the cooperation of the Austrian Nazi groups in suppressing the Socialists. Large numbers of Nazis are said to have joined both the Socialists and the pro-government Heimwehr troops in order to secure arms for future contingencies. In the Tyrol, Nazi airplanes scattered leaflets abusing the Jews and predicting immediate conquest of Austrian by the Nazis. Up to the present, the Nazis seem to have remained neutral in the fight, gleefully saving that Dollfuss was doing their dirty work for them and that they would reap the benefit. Observers agree that a Nazi regime in Astria is inevitable.
In any case, a series of repressive measures that may destroy the old Austrian Jewish community is to be expected in the near future. If the Nazis win, utter extinction may be the lot of the Austrian Jews. If the Heimwehr wins, the repressive measures against the Jews may take a milder form, without the obvious brutality of the German Nazis, but nevertheless just as effective.
When a Jewish delegation visited Chancelor Dollfuss this week he said that the government contemplated no specific anti-Jewish measures in the near future. However, the government paid no attention to the offer made by General Sommer, president of the Jewish War Veterans’Association, to fling 17,000 Jewish exsoldiers in the fight on the government side. The result was to anger the Socialist workers and help confirm the government allegation made over the government-controlled radio that the Jewish leaders who participated in the fighting had betrayed their followers. Many of the Socialist workers are reported to be joining the Nazis. More than 1,000 Polish Jews residing in Austria fled from the country and entered Poland. Non-Polish citzens were refued admission.
GERMANY
From Munich, Thcodore Habicht, Nazi “Inspector General for Austria” warned Austrian Nazis not to go to the aid of the Dollfuss government and asserted tht depite the victory of the government over the Socialists, the Nazis would triuph in Austria. The Nazi goverment remained quiet during the week of civil war in Austria apparently afraid of international complications. A spokesman for the Wilhelmstrasse, however, declared that Germany would emerge from her reserve if the Czechs marched into Austria The Austrian Legion in southern Nazis who fled from Austraia, is siad to bedemanding to be allowed to march on Vienna Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen appealed to the Jews of Saar valley to vote for Germany in the coming plebiscite. He promised them that the “Aryan clause” would not be applied the Saar region.
In the main the position of the Jews in Germany has not changed. Evidence continues to accumulate that even the decree issued by Minister of the Interior Frick not to apply the “Aryan clause” to Jews in business is meaningless as long as the Nazi party itself from its Munich Brown House headquarters continues to issue instructions to the contrary. A Berlin court decided that it was a crime to pay debts to Germans in exile. A fine of 1,000 marks was imposd upon a woman who paid a debt to a German manufacturer living outside of Germany since March, 1933.
POLAND
Minister of the Inerior Pieracki, answering a violent anti-Semitic attack made by Endek deputies inthe Polish parliament, declared that perpetrators of acts of violence against any minority in Poland would be severely punished by the government. He said that Poland’s greatness in the past was due to her ability to live in peace with the minorities within the Polish state. Another government leader admitted frankly that Poland regretted the large number of Jews in the country, but pointed out that anti-Semitism was no solution for the problem. The decision of the Warsaw Jewish community to appoint six new rebbis has precipitated a controversy between the Agudath Isael, the Mizrachi and the non-or-thodox groups. While the two or-thodox groups are attemping to have their members appointed, the other group insists that the new posts are entirely superflucus.
PALESTINE
News of the week from Palestine continues to center on the Arlosoroff hearing. Abdul Mejid, Arab conviet who created a sensation when he first confessed that he had killed Dr. Arlosoroff and then the defendants, Stavsky and Rosenblatt, had offered him £1,000 for the confession, was on the witnes stand for six days while defense counsel Samuel cross-examind him. The Arab stuck to his story although Samuel ws able to make him admit a number of contradictions and conflicts with earlier testimony.
The Nurison Commission, which investigated the conduct of the Palestine police during the Arab riots, brought in a report completely exonerating them. The commission declared that the police acted with “restraint and forbearance.” Although country is known to be opposed to income taxes, which may prevent new businesses coming into Palestine, the government has named a commission to study the question of the introduction of such a tax.
THE REST OF EUROPE.
For the ninth time, the trial of the police torturers of Samson Bronstein, Rumanian Jewish Poale Zion leader, was postponed by the Rumanian government Hungarian Nazis asked Regent of Hungary to allow them to carry on propaganda. They declared that they had nothing in common with the German Nazi except anti-Semitism. An Italian Jewish novelist won a coveted literary prize for his novel dealing with Egyptian Jewish families. The Paris relief committee announced that it must suspend its work for German Jewish refugees unless money is forthcoming at once. Hundreds of refugees will be turned into the streets if the committee ceases functioning. The only Turkish Jewish paper in that country suspended publication. One of the between the assimilationist and anti-assimilationist groups into which Turkish Jewry is divide
Heinz Liepmann, German Jewish refugee author, now in Holland, was arrested for the publication of an anti-Nazi novel. He is charged with having libeled the head of a friendly state. If convicted he faces a four years’ sentence. The truth of his assertion does not seem to enter into the matter.
THE UNITED STATES.
The executive committee of the Zionist Organization of America, which met to discuss the question of the World Jewish Congress, appointed a committee to confer with the American Jewish Congress and voted in favor of postpoing the World Congress on the grounds that preparations for the Congress were insuffcient and inadequate and that the time was not ripe for such a meeting. A statement issued by the American Jewish Congress and signed by Rabbi Staphen S. Wise and Bernard S Deutsch declared that the Congress was without power to halt the elections for delegated to the World Congress, but would recommend its postponement. Twice this week Mayor LaGuardia attacked the Hitler regime in a most vigorous fashion, once at the dinner given by the Anti-Nazi League in honor of William Green, president of the America Federatoin of Labor for his advocacy of the anti-German boycott, and again at the dinner in honor of Charles Edward Russell, leader of the Pro-Palestine Federation, composed of non-Jewish who favor the Zionist movement. The Mayor also urged that the doors of Palestine be opened to Jewish immigrants Samuel Rodman, Russian correspondent for a number of English newspapers, who returned from the Soviet, declared that Russia was rapidly absorbing and assimilating the Russian Jews James G. McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for German Refugees and Felix M. Warburg returned from the London meeting of the agencies of the refugee body. McDonald declared that the was satisfled with the work of the refugee body and said that progress was being made. Neither McDonald nor Warburg would comment on the possible fact of the Austrian situation on the refugee problem.
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.
