Read From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism Online

Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

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From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (71 page)

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Page 331

The incarceration of 120,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps, whose only crime was to be of Japanese descent (in some cases people who, unbeknownst to themselves, had only one Japanese great-great-grandparent),

²¹produced no movement of protest remotely comparable to Irene Harand's ''World Organization against Racial Hatred and Human Need." When the mayor of Tacoma, Washington, spoke out against the deportation, he was promptly defeated for reelection. Nor can the imprisonment of the Japanese-Americans be excused on the grounds that it was an unfortunate military necessity. Most of the deportees were incarcerated
after
the Battle of Midway in June 1942, which ended even the remote possibility of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.

Americans and other critics of Austria must also remind themselves that something like 80 percent of the population of contemporary Austria was at most no more than small children during the Holocaust, let alone in any way actively involved in it. To be sure, far more Austrians (and other European nationalities) were in some sense guilty of crimes against humanity than those few people in decision-making positions. They included bureaucrats who methodically carried out orders to persecute Jews, people who gleefully confiscated Jewish businesses and homes, and numerous authors of anti-Semitic smut like Robert Körber. Nevertheless, the concept of collective guilt ignores individual responsibility and lumps together the monstrously guilty, like Adolf Hitler and Adolf Eichmann, with the ardent opponents of antiSemitism like Irene Harand and Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. It also bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the Nazi dogma of inherited racial characteristics and the medieval Catholic dogma that Jews were collectively and hereditarily responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.

However inadequate the Austrian government has been in compensating Jewish survivors, and however real the remnants of antiSemitism are in contemporary Austria, it is nevertheless beyond doubt that the Austrians have made great progress in combating antiSemitism since the Second World War. Anti-Semitic brawls at the University of Vienna and giant anti-Semitic demonstrations in the streets of the capital city, such as those that characterized the First Republic, have been rare in the Second Republic and unknown since 1965.

Although it is both unfair and politically counterproductive for outside observers to hold the great majority of the Austrian people of today even partially responsible for the Holocaust, Austrians, for their part, should also not treat the Holocaust and their anti-Semitic past as though they were things that occurred

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on another continent or in another century. If collective guilt deserves to be rejected, a collective responsibility to remember ought to be embraced. Even though Austrian antiSemitism today is vastly weaker than it was a half century ago, both Austrian and world history demonstrate the remarkable ability of the prejudice to survive long periods of dormancy. All that is required is a political, economic, or social crisis. National traditions are often enormously tenacious and do not disappear simply by being ignored. Austrian antiSemitism certainly qualifies as such a national tradition. Moreover, recent public opinion polls show that about a third of the Austrian population is susceptible to antiSemitism.

²²This fact is perhaps less significant for the tiny Jewish population of Austria in the 1990s, which now at least has the option of moving to Israel if necessary, than it is for Austrian democracy, which can still be corrupted by anti-Semitic demagoguery.

Another, no doubt lesser known Austrian tradition is the protection of minority rights. Anyone who doubts this need only compare the fate of national minorities in the AustroHungarian Monarchy with that of most of the successor states of interwar East Central Europe.
²³This other tradition is shortchanged when Austrian antiSemites are rehabilitated and the defenders of Jews are neglected. For example, a person like Leopold Kunschak, who as late as December 1945 boasted that he was a lifelong antiSemite, is today revered as one of the great founders of the Second Republic. In 1978 he was even honored with a stamp on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death
²⁴and a housing project has been named for him in the Lower Austrian town of St. Polten.

On the other hand, the incredible bravery of Irene Harand has gone largely unrecognized. She was lucky enough to be in England at the time of the Anschluss and then lived out the rest of her life in exile in New York where she continued her struggle against antiSemitism and other forms of prejudice both during and after the Second World War before dying in almost total obscurity in 1975. In December 1969, however, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and research center in Jerusalem, did honor her with a medallion and a certificate testifying to her activities on behalf of persecuted Jews and made her one of the "Righteous Gentiles." A year later, on her seventieth birthday, the Austrian government decorated her for her opposition to National Socialism.
²⁵Until very recently, however, she remained almost completely forgotten in her own country. This fate may now at last be changing, however. A housing project (appropriately) on the Judengasse in Vienna's first district was named for her in a formal ceremony in early 1990 at which time her lifelong achieve-

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ments were lauded by Mayor Helmut Zilk and District Manager Dr. Richard Schmitz.
²⁶A heroine of truly international stature, she represents the very highest humanitarian and Austrian values. Her story should be told in every Austrian school.

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NOTES

Preface