Whatever the outcome of the present conflict in Austria, whether it leads to a Dollfuss dictatorship or a coalition with the Nazis, one thing ##ins certain: the position of the ## Jews will be very adversely affected. At the moment ## even seems probable that far-reaching anti-Jewish measures will be taken in the near future.
But while the political status of the Jews of this country will change for the worse, their economic situation is now so bad as to allow of little change. In the last eighty years, Vienna had seen its Jewish population grow from 500 to over 200,000. From a handful of Jewish traders there had developed a large and prosperous community, the second largest in Europe. The Viennese Jews achieved a high cultural and economic level, they established industries, developed trade, and greatly increased the economic welfare both of themselves and of the country as a whole.
JEWS SAVED AUSTRIA
They produced scientists, artists, engineers of world-fame. Jewish enterprise brought untold millions into the country, and Viennese Jews devoted large sums to charitable, cultural and social institutions. Even in the small and poor post-War Austria, the Jews did much to re-establish the economic foundations of the country. Dr. Schober, then Prime Minister of Austria, himself declared in public that the Jews had saved Austria from economic ruin.
And then came the change. The economic crisis, followed by political complications with Germany, meant catastrophe for Austria, and for Austrian Jewry in particular. Austrian Jewry has once and for all lost its old position of prosperity and power.
The old Jewish plutocracy has completely died out. Jewish bank directors and Jewish financiers have ceased to exist. Even the Vienna Rotschilds are no longer what they were–not that they have become poor in the real sense of the word, but they have ceased to play any part in the financial or public life of Austria.
JEWISH LEADERS VANISH
In industry, the same process is at work, Jewish directors, with their Jewish employees and officials, are fast disappearing from the picture. Many factories are closed down, from those that still function Jews are being thrown out by the score.
This process in industry and finance has practically wiped out the Jewish middle and upper classes. Many of them are actually suffering hunger. Their last reserves have been eaten up, even their furniture and personal belongings have been sold, and there is nothing left for them to do but to appeal to the community for charity.
Almost a third of the whole Jewish population of Vienna is now starving and dependent on the community for support. And the community can do but little to help them. To keep 60,000 people alive is no mean matter for the wealthiest community, and the Vienna community in the years since the War has become an extremely poor one. The most it can do is to give a few schillings here and a few schillings there. In Jewish quarters poverty stares one in the face. One can find people who not long ago were very well-to-do sitting in small cafes, sitting there not for amusement, but in order to keep warm.
DESPAIR AMONG YOUTH
The position of the young generation is even worse. Despair is everywhere. They have nothing to look forward to. The chances of obtaining employment are negligible. Some study, knowing full will that they may never be able to make use of their knowledge. Even the older doctors, engineers and lawyers find it impossible to make a living; for the younger generation the prospects are nonexistent. To obtain work in any of the State institutions has long been impossible for a Jew, and now the process has extended to the local authorities.
It must not be forgotten that these are pictures not from Poland or Galicia, but from Vienna, pictures of what was once one of the largest and wealthiest Jewish communities. And the position revealed is rapidly getting worse. The Austrians don’t do things in the clumsy way the Germans do, but they do them just as efficiently.
License requirements are being extended to trade and industry, and Jews will have to prove that they are actually required, they will have to convince the Government that their particular branch of trade or industry is essential to the country. And to prove this to an unsympathetic government will be no easy task.
In the meantime, Zionist feeling has grown apace. Only a year ago, no more than ten per cent of the Jewish youth had as much as heard of Zionism, and of these perhaps half really believed in it. Today, all are Zionists, and all would willingly go to Palestine if it were possible. Jewish youth in Austria see in Palestine the next likely way out of the debacle confronting them here.
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.
