LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week " paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must be accompanied by the name and address of the author, which will be treated as confidential.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR]
SALVATION COMES TO VIENNA
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking on the occupa- tion of Vienna by the German troops, quoted in the House of Lords on March 29th a letter: from Vienna which stated : " On Friday evening came this sudden salvation, which seemed to us like a dream."
Later on the Archbishop said : " It is something for which to be thankful that it took place without any bloodshed what- ever."
I have had an eye-witnesses' account of the " salvation " which came to Vienna :
" The reign of terror in Vienna which began with the fall of Schuschnigg and still continues is none the worse because it is conducted discreetly and methodically. . . . Jews fled in trembling panic and barred themselves in. . . . What set in at once and is still in progress was the systematic plundering of Jewish shops and flats in the name of housesearches ' and ' requisitions ' by stormtrooper bands. Thousands of rich and poor have been and are being robbed of vast sums in this way. There are shameful scenes in the streets where Jews and Jewesses have been seized at random and forced to go down on hands and knees and scrub away with acid solutions at the Dollfuss crosses painted on the pavement. . . . There has been far worse treatment of Jews. One horror was that of the Jewish community headquarters in the Seitenstaetten- gasse. Here in one building are situated the synagogue, the Jewish cultural organisations and all Jewish relief. All last week the elite guards in field grey who were in occupation issued ' passes ' to poor Jews to come into the building and get relief. When they got in—as this correspondent ascertained beyond possibility of challenge—they were forced to put on the top hats which the rabbis use for prayer and the sacred Jarmikl, or praying caps, and, thus attired, to perform physical jerks in the synagogue building. When these weak old people stumbled over knee-begging and stretching with a chair in each hand, they wer& kicked, cuffed and spat upon. Others were forced to strap the sacred Twillim Rolls on their wrists, and with them to clean out closet bowls with their hands and scrub the floors. - I watched the Jews coming out of this hell of sacrilege, their faces ashen, their eyes full of indescribable horror, their facial muscles twitching. . . . Here overnight 200,000 Jews were made free game for the mob, despoiled of their property, deprived of police protection, ejected from employment, sources of relief from their fellows closed, their religion outraged and frontiers hermetically sealed against their escape. Even Goering fears that the worst pogroms for centuries will result from the systematic efforts to create enthusiasm before the plebiscite by turning the mob on the Jews." After two days of the reign of terror, this correspondent ceased trying to dissuade any Jewish friends from suicide ; it seemed the only possible way of escape.
The Archbishop believes (though I have met nobody else who shares his optimism) that there was no bloodshed. The victims of such treatment as is described above, to whom their religion is every bit as dear as that of the Archbishop's is to him, might well think there are worse things than that of death.
At any rate, if the religion of the Archbishop is such that to can quote with approval the word " salvation " in connexion with an annexation which was accompanied by such persecution, 1 can only say that the trumpet recall to that religion which the Archbishop is sounding will fall on a great many deaf ears.—
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