Vienna’s Jewish population will have only about 330 physicians and 100 dentists beginning with Oct. I, under regulations issued to enforce the recent decree for the purging of the medical profession. Jewish practitioners will be permitted to treat “Aryans” and “Aryans” will be allowed to treat Jewish patients only in emergency cases.
The 330 Jewish physicians represent one-sixth of the number who were practicing in Vienna before Austria-German Anschluss. No Jewish doctors will be certified for rural or small-town practice, but small “exempt” lists are being drawn up for such larger towns as Graz and Linz.
The Vienna physicians on the “exempt” list are classified as follows: 150 general practitioners; 100 specialists, 56 for the Rothschild Hospital, Vienna’s only Jewish hospital; 6 for the old People’s Home; 5 for Jewish schools and an additional 5 for specified functions relating to child welfare.
The 100 Jewish dentists who will be permitted to practice in Vienna include 40 dental mechanics.
The list as a whole is declared to be adequate for purposes of health protection. The authorities have promised to protect the leases on homes of Jewish physicians and in some cases to return their automobiles, which were confiscated in the early days of Anschluss.
On the other hand, it is doubted whether the 250 general practitioners and specialists will be able to earn a living from the rapidly dwindling and increasingly impoverished Jewish population. Their clientele is restricted to full Jews and part Jews who profess the Jewish religion.
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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.
