Three leaders of the Vienna Jewish Community were released from the custody of the Gestapo (German Secret Police) yesterday evening in time to have dinner with their families for the first time since the early days of Austria’s Nazi regime.
Dr. Desider Friedmann, former president of the community, was brought to Vienna from the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, and released. Joseph Loewenherz, managing director, and Moritz Apte, treasurer of the community, were freed from Vienna prisons.
Dr. Friedmann, who had been held since March 18, was charged with being instrumental in raising funds for the Schusschnigg government. Loewenherz was accused of burning a list of Jewish contributors to the cause of ex-Chancellor Kurt Schusschnigg. Apte was arrested accidentally while visiting the Jewish Community offices.
Newspapers published a warning by Heinrich Himmler, Reich chief of the Gestapo, that shechita, the Jewish ritual method of slaughtering animals for human consumption, is expressly forbidden throughout Austria, as it is in Germany proper.
Thirty-five victims of the Nazi drive to expel all Jews from the province of Burgenland, who had been driven into Czechoslovakia and sent back, are confined in barracks on Austrian soil opposite Bratislava. The same barracks are believed to house 50 Jews ordered deported but without a place to go.
Police registration offices have been required to disclose persons of Jewish origin to anyone asking the information, under a decree by the Ministry of the Interior. The police, however, are especially prohibited from disclosing identity of “Mischlinge” (persons of mixed blood).
In connection with the new collections for “Aryan” poor, it was announced that scrip to be issued to needy persons may not be used at Jewish shops. Jewish stores accepting the scrip will be unable to redeem it at relief headquarters, it was stated.
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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.
