While white flags emblematic of a completed purge of Jews fly from several Burgenland towns, A group of exiles was reported today to have found refuge in the great Oroszvar castle of the 74-year-old Hungarian aristocrat, Princess Stephanie Lonyai. The Princess’s first husband was Crown Prince Rudolf of Mayerling fame.
According to the reports reaching Vienna, the refugees have been provided with matzos and a schochet to enable them to celebrate Passover in an orthodox manner.
Meanwhile, the drive of Nazi storm troopers and the Gestapo to oust the Jews from Burgenland, east Austrian province which borders both Hungary and Czechoslovakia, is continuing unabated. Over the week-end, about 60 Jewish families in Frauenkirchen, totalling some 300 souls, were ordered to leave the Greater Reich within 14 days. The families were, however, forbidden to leave town during the period of grace without special permission.
Unless the blockade is removed the families affected will not be able to seek possible haven in Vienna. Other Burgenland Jewish families are in a similar position, being unable for that reason among others to obtain visas.
Thus far, Burgenland deportees who have reached Vienna are being permitted to live quietly on the charity of friends, despite the lapse in the period of grace given them to leave the Reich. Most of them spend their days making a futile round of consulates, seeking a country which will accept them.
What will happen to the Frauenkirchen families just ordered expelled cannot be fore seen. In the past, Burgenland Jews have been smuggled into Czechoslovakia and Hungary after harrowing experiences at the frontier.
In some towns where the “Judenrein” white flag does not yet flutter, the remaining Jews have been deprived of all ordinary means of sustenance. Their shops have been sealed and “Aryan” shops have been forbidden to sell to them. They are not permitted to leave the town precincts and are forced to rely on the charity of Christian neighbors or the proceeds of surreptitious sale of personal property.
While many Jews are forced to sign statements that they are swindlers and Communists, some are obliged to sign declarations involving political implications. Thus, they are made to say that Jews smuggled munitions from Czechoslovakia for the Spanish Loyalists.
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.
