Refugees Besiege Relief Bodies in Paris

A number of American citizens are stranded here without funds as a result of the Nazi conquest of Austria, it was revealed today. The Americans, together with scores of other Jewish refugees from Austria, have applied for assistance to Jewish relief organizations here. Among the organizations dealing with such applications are the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the HIAS-ICA, immigrant aid society, and the Jewish Colonization Association.

A majority of the refugees are not Austrian citizens, but nevertheless were unable to take funds out of Austria when they took hurried departures.

Anticipating an increased number of refugees from Austria, the French authorities are reported to have issued instructions for stricter immigration control at the frontiers. All trains from Switzerland are being stopped at the frontier for passport inspection. A train from Austria was detained today at Strasbourg and of its Jewish passengers only fifty, mainly non-Austrians, were admitted to France.

Refugees reaching Paris tell heartrending stories of events in Vienna. The Germans, they charge, are acting in the manner of a regular army of occupation. Some assert that the long lists of suicides reported by the Vienna newspapers are really massacres carried out by Nazi units. They describe treatment of Vienna Jews as more Brutal than anything that has yet happened to German Jewry.

The position of poor Jews, the refugees assert, is extremely precarious, since the Nazis have confiscated the Jewish Community’s funds. Thirty thousand schillings in cash is reported to have been taken by the Nazis during their raid on the Community offices. The Community bank deposits have been sealed.