Appeals for Aid As Unemployed Grow in Vienna

The number of Jewish unemployed in Austria “is growing with the speed of a hurricanes,” according to Dr. A. Schmerler, head of the Jewish Free Employment Exchange, who has issued an appeal in which he describes the mounting misery of the Jews of this country.

“Jewish employers are giving up their businesses because they no longer pay, and their numbers are added to the unemployed. And not only they, but also the members of their families, whom they previously maintained.

LIVE IN MISERY

“On top of that there is the flood of young people leaving school and being added to the labor market. The majority of the Jewish youth no longer can attend the higher schools.

“It is hard to read the descriptions of the misery in which these people live, but it is harder to live in this misery.

“Everything is pawned. They live in unheated rooms in constant fear of eviction because of rent arrears. Children and invalids, like the rest, are without sufficient food. There is not a penny for coal. Medical treatment is almost impossible.

“Many refuse to become a burden on the public welfare institutions. They want to work and earn their living—even the barest living.”

ADJUSTMENT ESSENTIAL

Two factors in the situation are causing particular anxiety: the numbers of Jews of the middle class seeking jobs and the highly-trained material available.

“People incline to the belief,” Dr. Schmerler says, “that a change in occupational composition of the Jews will partly solve the problem, but when you look into the facts you become convinced that in the present circumstances the center of gravity of the problem of Jewish unemployment lies not in a change in occupational composition, but in adjustment to economic life, to place them in the economic process.

“Merely training them in other occupations will not touch the problem, for we have plenty of skilled artisans and manual laborers who are out of work.”