The Associated Press reported from Vienna today that Austria’s 250,000 Jews are watching with growing anxiety the spread of a new anti-Semitic campaign close on the heels of the Austrian pact of friendship with Nazi Germany.
Some Jewish leaders believe Austria is no longer a safe harbor for their people, largely as a result of the treaty and the growth of the Nazi Party, the dispatch said. Jewish communities were reported swamped with applications for emigration to Palestine and other countries.
The news agency declared the wave of propaganda was apparent in denunciations by Catholic, labor peasant and merchant organizations, who charged the Jews with paving the way for Communism. The campaign is not confined to the Nazis, but has drawn the participation of liberal national elements.
Jewish leaders in Vienna were quoted as asserting that 60 per cent of the Jews in Austria have reached a state of poverty as a result of the anti-Semitic propaganda. An unnamed leader was quoted:
“One can no longer find any Jews in the Austrian state departments, nor in the Austrian courts. The city of Vienna employs only a few Jewish physicians.
“Vienna hospitals presently refuse to employ Jewish student doctors. In a short time, therefore, Austria will have no Jewish professors in the University of Medical Faculties.
“The same policy is followed in other university branches. In the past two years no Jewish teachers have been given positions in the Austrian high schools.”
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