Austria’s Nazi regime today prohibited Jews from selling land without special police permission, while Hungary and Czechoslovakia tightened immigration restrictions against Austrians.
A serious handicap was imposed on Jews seeking to liquidate realty holdings when Vienna courts announced that they would be required to obtain special permission from the police to sell land. This permission is not required of “Aryans.”
International barriers against Jews seeking to flee were tightened with the announcement that Austrians desiring to enter Hungary and Czechoslovakia must obtain special consular permission. In an article on regulations for traveling abroad, the Wiener Abendblatt declared that all Austrians, Jewish and non-Jewish, must first obtain exit visas from the police, in addition to other visa requirements. Consular permission for admission of Austrians is also required by Poland, Yugoslavia and Switzerland. Italy alone does not require visas from Austrians.
An Austrian and his “non-Aryan” wife, who lived in harmony since 1921 until he joined the Nazi Party, were divorced today by common consent in the first case in Austria in which race was accepted as ground for divorce.
Granting the divorce on the ground of incompatibility, the Vienna court declared that since the founding of the greater Reich, incompatibility of this kind could no longer be ignored, since the man found his happiness in the new political situation, which the wife, by reason of blood, was unable to share.
According to the testimony, the couple was married under Evangelic Church rites, the Jewish bride previously accepting conversion to her husband’s protestant faith. The marriage was harmonious until the husband, imbued with the Nazi ideology, joined the National Socialist Party. His wife did not share his views, and so he left her. Both requested the divorce.
The case was considered as casting a strong light on future developments here. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which make marriage between “Aryans” and “non-Aryans” illegal, have not yet been officially promulgated in Austria.
Professor Wilhelm Knoepfelmacher, Jewish psychiatrist, who formerly was the head of the children’s clinic at Vienna University, is recovering from an attempt at suicide. It was reported yesterday that he had committed suicide.
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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.
