The antisemitic student disturbances at the Vienna High Schools were continued to-day, under cover of fighting between the Hitlerists and the Socialist students, Many Jewish students were beaten, to the accompaniment of antisemitic cries. All the Jewish exhibition-cases in the University hall, were smashed, with the sole exception of one containing Palestine pictures which were saved by the personal intervention of the Rector, Professor Uebersberger, who is a member of the Austrian Pro-Palestine Committee.
A delegation of Jewish students interviewed the Rector to-day, and lodged a protest against the continuing disturbances, which, they said, compel them to stay away from the lectures and examinations. The Rector said that he greatly deplored these incidents, and promised that he would put the question of taking severer measures for the protection of the students to the next meeting of the University Senate.
The clashes are connected with the elections to the student committees which are now in progress, and which are being carried out in accordance with the recent granting of student rights to the antisemitic student bodies, which are organised on purely Germanic race-principles and do not admit Jews or anyone of Jewish blood, even if converted, or of Jewish origin for three generations back. All those Jewish students who are not Jewish Nationalists, and do not desire therefore to be organised in separate Jewish student bodies, find them-selves consequently excluded from the student organisations, and deprived of all student rights. Many old Austrian Jewish families, some of which have considerable influence, are supporting these Jewish students in their protest and their demand that the student organisation should be open to students on the basis of Austrian citizenship and not of the Germanic-race principle.
Strong police patrols are on guard to-day in the streets around the University, keeping a passage for people and traffic, while the University itself is occupied by the Hitlorists, who are admitting only Aryan Nationalist students, and thus barring the Jewish students from all participation in the work of the High Schools.
The Jewish students are taking no part in the student committee elections, over which the disturbances have broken out. Quiet will probably be restored in a day or two, as soon as the elections are over.
Meanwhile the elections have revealed a startling growth of Hitlerist feeling among the students, as for instance, at the Agricultural High School, where the Hackenkreuzler, the extreme antisemitic wing, have obtained two-thirds of the Hitlerist seats. An American student who was beaten, has applied to the U.S. Consul for protection to pursue his studies.
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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.
