The official newspaper of the Dollfuss regime, the Wiener Zeitung, today reported that the anxiously awaited new constitution for Austria, which is to place Austria on the basis of a corporative state, contains clauses guaranteeing freedom of belief and conscience.
While this announcement has somewhat calmed the fears of the Jews of Austria, who have been living in an atmosphere filled with dire rumors still that await tensely a second assurance guaranteeing the Jews equality of citizenship with other groups. Jewish apprehensions are based on the reported Heimwehr project to deprive a large number of naturalized Jews of full citizenship rights.
The Heimwehr project was first published in a Budanest paper as a dispatch from its Viennese correspondent. The Wiener Zeitung then republished the entire report. In view of the fact that the Austrian censor permitted the story to be printed in an official newspaper and the failure of the Austrian government to deny the report, Austrian Jews fear a sharp limitation of their rights.
The official papers of the government parties, including the Christian Socialists and the Heimwehr, continue to demand limitations of Jewish citizenship rights and the institution of a numerous clauses against the Jews in many walks of life, particularly in the intellectual professions.
Recently the Austrian authorities announced the introduction of a numerus clausus against Jewish artists on the government owned radio system. The number of Jewish artists permitted to appear on radio programs or to write for the radio was limited to the proportion of Jews in the total Austrian population.
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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.
