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Conversion Drive is Launched by Catholic Group in Austria

September 6, 1934
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The impoverishment of Austrian Jewry is being used by Catholic missionaries for an intensive campaign to convert Jews to Catholicism, it was disclosed today.

A special association for the conversion of Jews has been formed in Vienna with the direct approval of Ralph Cardinal Innitzer. The group, known as “Pauluswerk,” has its own paper which is filled with propaganda urging the mass conversion of Jews as the only way out of their misery. The entire movement is camouflaged under a guise of relieving the terrible distress among the Jews of Austria. Relief, however, when actually given, is accompanied by printed propaganda and personal contacts urging immediate conversion to Catholicism.

At the same time the wholesale elimination of Jews from public and professional life in Vienna continues with an ever increasing tempo. The newest victim in the campaign, the Vienna Zionist paper, Stimme, revealed today is Dr. Rudolf Britcha, general secretary of the Vienna Merchants Association. Dr. Britcha was compelled to resign while he was on his annual holiday. He was replaced at once by an “Aryan.”

Hundreds of Jewish bank employees, many of whom were employed for years, have been dismissed within the past few weeks.

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