Mass emigration of Jews from Austria has now started. The Jews have lost hope that conditions in Austria will not become the same as in Germany. Vienna papers are full of advertisements. Forwarding agencies and travel bureaus are besieged by enquirers.
Many Jews are packing up their belongings and are preparing to leave Vienna, once so attractive but now so unpleasant for them. The Clerical-Fascist program has brought mishap to the country; and a still lower Hitleristic anti-Semitism which robs the Jew of his livelihood, drives him away quietly, without pogroms and without excesses, but most effectively nevertheless.
WOULD GO TO AMERICA
If America or any other civilized country were open for immigration, half of the Jews of Austria would have left the country within a week—not only the Eastern Jews who came here from Galicia and Bukovina, but even the 100 per cent Western Jewish aristocracy and particularly those who have been fully emancipated for several generations, are disgusted by this display of anti-Semitism.
They feel themselves personally degraded by each blow dealt the Jews, veiled one day in a diplomatic government communique and effected the next day in a mean and brutal manner by the various administrative offices.
ROBBED OF HOPE
Jewish youth flees because the present economic program has robbed it of all hope of building careers in official or private {SPAN}#heres{/SPAN}. The middle-aged and old-{SPAN}###eads{/SPAN} of families and the {SPAN}intel###als{/SPAN} prepare to make the {SPAN}jour###{/SPAN} before they have spent their {SPAN}###{/SPAN} cent. There is little doubt that a precipitate exodus of Jews from Austria must be reckoned with.
The chief desire of the Jews is to go to Palestine. They sacrifice all their possessions in order to acquire the amount required to obtain a “capitalist” or professional certificate for Palestine.
The young Jew is eager to go there as a chalutz. Intellectuals, dismissed from their posts, owners of factories and merchants are less eager.
ADVERTISE BELONGINGS
The newspapers are full of advertisements: Jews offer all their belongings for sale, purchasers of works of art and more or less expensive furniture are wanted. But the more advertisements in the papers the less purchase money is to be found, the fewer buyers are located and the less the sales realize.
This situation is much worse than it was in Germany. Other Jews will buy nothing from the prospective emigres because they fear that tomorrow they, too, perhaps, will be forced to sell their own belongings. Young Jewish couples make no effort to furnish homes, they live provisionally in furnished rooms; they prefer to hold the money in order to have something with which to emigrate.
The non-Jewish population, witnessing the haste of the Jews, refrains from buying in the belief that the fleeing Jews will sell much cheaper tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
ANTI-SEMITISM UNRELENTING
And the sanctimonious Austrian government pursues with cold cruelty its anti-Semitic course! Hardly a day passes that Jews are not dismissed from official positions or deprived of their livelihood. So far, hundreds of Jewish
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.
