After more than a week of incessant activities, the police have apparently begun tapering off their drive, which had resulted in the arrest of between 3,000 to 6,000 Jews in Vienna alone. While an exact count is impossible, most observers believe the higher figure is more accurate, if it includes those arrested and released after a few days and also those seized in outlying districts.
Of the total, considerably over 1,000 have been shipped out of Vienna by train, presumably to the Dachau concentration camp, it was indicated by police replies to hundreds of inquirers. there is reason to believe that a small contingent was sent to Steiermark for flood reconstruction work and another small group to some point along the Czechoslovak frontier. It is likely that the greater part of the prisoners are still held in Vienna schools which have been converted into jails.
Only a few scattered arrests of Jews were recorded in the last twenty-four hours, indicating at least a temporary cessation of the wave of arrests. The lower windows of the Karajongasse jail, where many of the arrested are held, were painted to render them opaque, making it impossible for relatives any longer to recognize prisoners. Relatives of Jews sent to the Dachau concentration camp were making efforts to send them clothing and money, since the prisoners were sent off with only what they were wearing, often hatless.
Among Jews released are several Zionists and Jewish Community workers, including Mendel Hagar and Marcus Muehlbauer. Newspapers here continue to ignore completely the week’s developments, but many families in Vienna heard a broadcast from Strassourg which reported that at least 2,000 Jews had been arrested. At the same time, readers of hungarian newspapers read in the Pester lloyd a denial by the German Government of a general roundup of Jews, coupled with admission only of minor police measures against criminals.
BOYCOTT DRIVE INTENSIFIED
While the round-up of Vienna Jews appeared to be drawing to a close, Austrian Nazis intensified their drive against the Jews in business and industry, and launched a boycott of Jewish shops in the capital. Scores of stores, including many on the Kaertnerstrasse, Vienna’s main shopping thoroughfare, were affected by the boycott, which was started yesterday. The shops were picketed by Nazi storm troopers.
The Vienna edition of the Voelkischer Beobachter, principal Nazi organ, published several lengthy articles of a more than usually violent character, attacking Jews en masse and in every profession and insisting that the “Aryanization” process go forward at a faster pace here than in Germany proper.
The “Aryanization” of the large Otto Kringer brewery in Vienna, and also of the famous Sanitorium Lakatos in nearby Baden, was revealed. At the same time, Herr Mischitz, secretary of the local “Aryanization” committee, announced that his activity henceforth would be confined to those Jewish shops competing with “Aryan” enterprises, leaving remaining Jewish enterprises to the mercy of the recurrent boycott, restrictions on credit and increasing pressure by tax officials.
Jewish wine merchants were hit by a decree obliging them to pay today’s market price for wine bought from producers before March 14, the differential amounting to as much as 50 per cent, otherwise, their wine would be confiscated. A rapid purge of Jews in the grain industry was also in progress. After previous appointment of commissars for all Jewish grain brokerages, the Jewish proprietors are now being altogether removed and being pressed to sell out to “Aryans.”
KREDIT ANSTALT DISMISSES JEWS
Conforming to the Nazi “Aryanization” policy, the Kredit Anstalt, Austria’s largest bank, has dismissed l06 Jewish employes. Only six wounded Jewish war veterans have been retained. The bank was formerly headed by baron Louis de Rothschild, who is still reportedly being held by the Nazi police.
Mixed Jewish and politically undesirable Government employes who have been employed more than ten years will be granted disability pensions, according to a new decree. The decree officially dismisses, as of March 13, all civil servants who are Jews under definition of the Nuremberg laws. Most of these have been under suspension since the first days of Anschluss.
The new Jewish advisory council of eight, named by the Gestapo to advise it on all Jewish matters, met for the first time. The council sent an urgent appeal to members of the Jewish Community urging prompt payment of community taxes. There is reason to believe that the nazi commissars in charge of Jewish enterprises have been authorized to pay the community taxes from income and capital of the business.
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.
