Vice-chancellor Adolf Schaerf today received a delegation from the local Jewish community protesting his recent statement in which he urged the revocation of special privileges for former Nazi victims. Explaining that he does not favor the abolition of restitution claims, Schaerf, a Socialist, told the delegation that he insisted only on the abolition of “privileges which are incompatible with democratic principles.”
Schaerf’s original statement was made when he addressed a group of returning prisoners of war whom he told that they had suffered equally with concentration camp victims and that the latter should not have priorities over the POW’s who, he said, joined the military machine under pressure and were not real war criminals.”
David Brill, president of the Vienna Jewish community, told a mass meeting that Schaerf would not have become vice-chancellor if the Allied Armies, “among whom there were several thousands of Jews” did not liberate Austria. He accused all political parties of having favored the Nezis, who are now “the beloved children of the new republic while the Jews are the step-children who are neglected because their notes are few in number.”
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.
