— The contribution of the Jewish labor movement in the fight for social justice and against militarism and racism between the two world wars is documented in a major exhibition on the Austrian labor movement during those years. The exhibition, which opened here last Thursday, is in honor of Chancellor Bruno Kreisky’s 70th birthday.
Before 1914 only a small part of the Jewish population in Vienna was proletarian. Nevertheless, the Poale Zionist (proletarian Zionists) organization was first organized in 1904. At the beginning of World War I, a large number of refugees from Galicia contributed to the rapid growth of the Poale Zionist organization.
War, hunger and identification with the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 led to a radicalization of the group. A considerable number of Poale Zionists joined the newly founded Communist Party. The rest of the group continued to adhere to the program of Poale Zion till the beginning of fascism in Austria in 1934. Many Jewish workers were also members of the Social Democratic Party.
Between the two wars the Jewish population of Vienna numbered up to 200,000. The Jewish community had a varied cultural life, including newspapers, institutions and a Yiddish theater which flourished until the Nazis overran Austria.
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.
