Silent, Relentless Battle Drives Austrian Jews from Professions

The economic crisis, together with political unrest and the sad example set by Germany, has changed the situation of a large proportion of the medical profession in this country. Hitherto, out of about 7,800 medical men and women, some 7,100 have lived and worked in Vienna, with its population of 1,800,000. The peculiarity of the profession in Vienna has been that about half its members were of Jewish race or extraction, whereas, in the provinces, the proportion of Jewish doctors was less than six per cent.

This is explained by the fact that out of the 250,000 Jews in Austria 200,000 live in Vienna. As they have been almost disbarred from appointments in the civil service, the municipalities, the post office and the railways—in fact, from public service — their intellectual members have had to turn to medicine, the bar, journalism and commerce. Especially in Vienna the first two vocations have been followed chiefly by Jewish students—not to the detriment of the professions concerned.

RELENTLESS BATTLE

Now, since democracy has been done away with, and the racial or religious aspect has been given overwhelming importance in all affairs pertaining to economic problems—for we must clearly understand that all this political unrest is simply a matter of “give us our daily bread”—a silent, secret, but relentless battle is being waged by the circles at present ruling this country against what they call “not national people,” the Jews. (Incidentally, Jews have been here in large numbers for at least 700 years.)

As regards medicine, all Jews holding any appointments, even of a minor character, in the hospitals, asylums, school clinics and laboratories, are more or less gently eliminated; if their term of service expires, it is not renewed; no new appointment is given to a Jew. The same holds good in panel practice or the Krankenkassen: they are dismissed, with or without pension, as the case may be.

A very serious matter is that the training of the would-be specialist, as well as of the ordinary practitioner who has not served his term, is completely at a standstill if he is a Jew. The existing regulations do not allow a doctor to settle down and practice as a recognized specialist, unless he has served at least four years in his intended branch of medicine, as “secundarius”—i.e., junior medical officer of a clinic. This is at present out of the question for Jewish doctors. Their chances of having the recognized training are simply cut off, for either they are quietly ousted from the clinics, or they are not accepted.

For more than a year no Jewish doctor has obtained an appointment in the Vienna general hospitals, while others without any training at all—but “nationals”—have been appointed in charge of wards or as assistants. This was made manifest recently, when the famous chief of a children’s hospital abruptly resigned his office. His Jewish assistants had been dismissed, and two others were appointed who had only passed their examinations quite recently and had no specialist knowledge at all. The professor declared himself unable to run the big children’s clinic without adequate help. His protest had no effect; the responsible authorities were glad to get rid of him by these means for he, too, was a Jew—on the verge of resignation, it is true, but still a famous man and fit for hard work. Such examples can be multiplied.

The fact is that about half the medical profession in Vienna are threatened with starvation. There will be no young specialists amongst the Jewish population. In the provinces all the Jewish doctors (they number about 200 all told) are in the same plight, and no one knows what is to be done if the present mentality of the ruling circles remains unchanged. At the same time, all protests coming from the Jewish community are met with the official assertion that no anti-Semitism exists; it is simply that the authorities are at liberty to choose, for all sorts of work, such candidates as they think qualified best for it.