Exile and Destruction: The Fate of Austrian Jews, 1938-1945

249 Pages·1995·1.216 MB·English

by  Gertrude Schneider

Exile and Destruction

EXILE AND
DESTRUCTION
The Fate of Austrian Jews,
1938–1945
Gertrude Schneider
Westport, Connecticut
London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schneider, Gertrude.
Exile and destruction : the fate of Austrian Jews, 1938–1945 /
Gertrude Schneider.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–275–95139–1
1. Jews—Austria—Persecutions. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—
Austria. 3. Austria—Ethnic relations. I. Title.
DS135.A9S36 1995
940.53′18′09436—dc20 94–38563
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 1995 by Gertrude Schneider
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94–38563
ISBN: 0–275–95139–1
First published in 1995
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Spring and Summer 1938 11
Kristallnacht November 1938 and the Family’s Dispersal 25
Spring and Summer 1939 35
Case Yellow: The War against France 43
A Quiet Year in Vienna: 1940 51
War with Russia and Transports to Poland 57
Transports to Litzmannstadt 65
Transports to Riga, Latvia 73
Taking Leave of Vienna 81
Transports to Minsk 95
The Death Camps in Poland: 1942 103
Theresienstadt 119
The Elimination of the Ghettos in the East 135
vi Contents
Deportations to Auschwitz and Other Camps: 1943–1944 143
An Accounting of Survivors Who Fled from Austria 153
The Homecoming 159
Appendix 169
Notes 199
Glossary 205
Bibliography 209
Index of Names 219
Index of Places 227
Acknowledgments
Sincere thanks to the Research Foundation of the City University of New
York. Its support in the form of a two-year research grant enabled me to
examine the large volume of documents concerning the destruction of
Austria’s Jews and perhaps equally important, to walk in the footsteps of
the victims. I visited every place to which they had been sent for extermi-
nation, and I describe their fate in detail, just as if I had been there with
them. Future generations of Austrians should be able to imagine what their
Jewish compatriots felt and should experience their martyrdom in other
ways than just through statistics.
Standing at the edge of the mass graves in the forests around Riga, or
Maly Trostinec in Minsk, entering the silent gas chambers and crematoria
left for posterity in Auschwitz and Stutthof, sifting the ashes mixed with
earth at Majdanek, at Belzec, at Sobibor, at Treblinka, at Chelmno, or other
such dismal sites, walking through the muddy streets of Opole and Kielce,
experiencing the utter stillness of a Sunday afternoon in what used to be the
teeming ghetto of Lodz, or offering a silent prayer at the Ring Graves in
Buchenwald, where my father, together with many other victims, lies
buried, brought the brutal and senseless murder of all the Jewish victims in
general, and the Austrian Jews in particular, into focus.
I vowed not to let the world forget that one-third of Austrian Jews fell
victim to Hitler and the Austrian henchmen among his followers, who took
such bloody vengeance on the Austrian Jews in an attempt to make up for
their own inadequacies as human beings.
viii Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Wolfgang Neugebauer and his staff at the
Dokumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes in Vienna, and I
wish to single out their Chief Librarian, Magister Herbert Exenberger. His
sympathetic interest in the destruction of the Jewish community, his empathy
with the victims, his willingness to spend much time with me and follow up
on my requests were done with grace and charm. Not for him the general
amnesia prevalent in Austria on the fate of its Jewish citizens! He knows what
his fellow Austrians did and he tries to honor the memory of the victims.
My thanks also go to surviving members of my family and friends with
whom I spoke about the war. I listened to their stories, and I researched
diligently before reporting their experiences in this book.
My appreciation goes to the staff of the World War II archives in Riga,
Latvia, for their courtesy and cooperation.
To Hadassah Modlinger, head of the archives at Yad Vashem in Jerusa-
lem, a very special thank-you for making available all the Viennese police
documents and especially the transport lists compiled by the very thorough
Gestapo. These lists are the harrowing proof of murder, giving names,
sometimes dates of birth, and last addresses in Austria of those hapless,
unsuspecting Jews about to be “resettled” in the East. Hadassah Modlinger
understood and aided my efforts, especially after it became all too clear that
the Arolsen archives of the International Tracing Service were not inclined
to cooperate with any kind of historical research, even though they had done
so during the summer of 1971 when I did the research on the Riga ghetto.
I must therefore suppose that the present administrators do not look kindly
on those who want to do research on the unspeakable crimes committed
during the Nazi era.
I appreciate the help and encouragement I received from Heinz Rosen-
berg, the author of Jahre des Schreckens. Rosenberg is one of the few
survivors of the Minsk ghetto. He felt, and I agree, that far too little is known
about the Minsk “murder factory.”
Thanks also to Frau Heidi Weiss, the overworked archivist of the Kul-
tusgemeinde in Vienna, for extending me the benefit of her expertise and
the courtesy to let me search at my own speed without bureaucratic
restrictions.
Another special thanks goes to Elliott Welles, the director of the Anti-
Defamation League’s task force on Nazi war criminals, who gave me access
to the names of over 5,000 SS officers hailing from Austria. They are
contained in eight volumes collected by the authorities in Ludwigsburg and
list a total of 42,000 SS officers from all over the German lands, as well as
the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Holland, Italy, Spain, and surprisingly, some
Acknowledgments ix
American and British as well. Elliott Welles’s foresight in bringing these
volumes to the United States is to be applauded.
I could never have pursued my quest in the East to where the Austrian
Jews had been sent for annihilation had it not been for my husband, Eric
Schneider, who drove me to every hamlet, every camp, every road on which
they trod. Acting as my interpreter, he was invaluable when I interviewed
older Poles who could best describe what took place almost next door to
them, or when I visited the archives in Czechoslovakia and Poland where
documents pertaining to the deportees are kept.
To the director of the archives kept at the former concentration camp
Stutthof, Magister Janina Grabowska-Chalka, and her assistant, Dr. Marek
Orski, many thanks for the excellent treatment I received whenever I made
requests. Thanks also for being supplied with valuable photocopies of
important material.
I thank all of those who encouraged me, not only my colleagues at the
Graduate School of the City University of New York, but also Jews who
were once upon a time Viennese and are now citizens of other countries.
Thanks also to Albert Sternfeld, a repatriate from Israel and Egon Rothblum,
a repatriate from the United States, whose input on life in present-day
Austria as seen by Jews who had been forced to go into a bitter exile,
contributed to my own edification.
I would further like to thank the Praeger staff: Dr. James Sabin, executive
vice president—editorial; Ms. Marcia Goldstein, editorial assistant; Ms. Jay
Williams, production supervisor; Ms. Jude Grant, production editor; and
last but not least, Ms. Mary Hammer, copy editor. All of them contributed
their professional expertise, exhibiting great sensitivity when dealing with
the subject of yet another aspect of the Holocaust; their empathy was
touching.
Finally, to Dr. George Schwab, friend, colleague, and fellow survivor,
my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for his advice and his suggestions on
the final manuscript. Despite the many demands on his time as a scholar,
professor, and president of the National Committee on American Foreign
Policy, he was always there when I needed him.
I dedicate this book to my children David, Barbara, and Peter, so that
they may know how the enlightenment in Austria fooled us, the Jews, into
being complacent when we should have been agitated, into feeling secure
when we should have been wary, and into loving our country which did not
love us at all. May they never have to make a choice—but forewarned is
forearmed.
Introduction
Thousands of years ago, the great valley of the Danube River was an
important pathway for the tribes who came to Europe from the East, as well
as for traders from the North on their way to Rome and Alexandria.
The Romans soon realized the significance of the region’s geographic
location and set up strong forts at Carnuntum and Vindobona, today’s
Carinthia and Vienna. Around A.D. 400, Germanic tribes swept over the land
and stayed there and so, with the influx of many different people, the area
became a true meeting place for East and West.
While there may have been Jewish traders among the Romans, the first
historical recording of a Jewish presence in Austria was dated 906. Called
the Toll Ordinance of Raffelstaetten, it was a tax imposed upon Jewish
merchants passing from Bavaria into the Balkans.
In the eleventh century a small town called Judenburg (Jewish fort) was
established in Austria by a group of Jews, and in 1204 the first Jewish
synagogue in Vienna, the country’s capital, was opened.
For the next two hundred years, the country was ruled by the Babenberg
Dukes, and although the few Jews living in Austria were tolerated and could
go about their business, they had to pay very high taxes for this privilege.
In a charter dated 1244, Duke Frederick I extended legal protection to the
Jews under his rule. He went as far as employing not only a Jewish mint
master, but also several financial agents with connections outside his
dukedom.
Meanwhile, in the other German-speaking lands, owing mainly to the
crusades, there were furious riots aimed against Jews, and some of those