The 40,000 Jews of Vienna, hitherto permitted to reside in four districts of the city, were this week ordered to move into the first and second district only according to a report reaching here today from Austria. Those unable to find dwellings under the new restriction will be sent to Nazi-occupied Eastern territories, the report said.
All Jewish schools in Vienna except two, according to the same report, have been evacuated to make room for German soldiers wounded on the Eastern front. One of the remaining schools houses a communal soup-kitchen. The other was used as a temporary concentration center for the Poland transports. There is only one synagogue for the city’s forty thousand Jews. The same building also houses the community organization. A Jew may not have more than 200 marks in his possession at any time. He may not have a newspaper delivered to his home, but he may buy one at a kiosk.
No Jew may buy coffee, cocoa, fruits, vegetables, honey, oils and milk, except in the case of children. He is entitled to buy, if the shops at which he is permitted to make his purchases have sufficient stocks, one half kilo of potatoes per person per week, eighteen grams of butter weekly, 400 grams of mutton, including bones, weekly, when available. His bread is described as “adequate.” He is forbidden to buy or possess tobacco, and tobacco shops display signs stating that Jews are not admitted.
Many young Jews have been recruited for hard labor at a paper mill near Linz. They work under strict supervision and usually have to do “stretches” of eight months. There are two labor camps for Jews in the vicinity of Vienna. At one, the Jews build roads, repair the railway right of way, break stones, etc., under the supervision of Schutz-Staffel, Standarte 89. Their pay is three marks every ten days. The other camp is a former Rothschild estate now taken over as an S.S. barracks. Here they work on estate “improvements,” building roads, repairing and cleaning stables.
Some Viennese Jews are employed in Nazi war industries, the report says. But they are not permitted to work in plants where they would have the opportunity to commit acts of sabotage or where they could learn secret manufacturing processes.
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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.
