HOLIDAYS IN AUSTRIA
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sm,—We are constantly told that no good is done by screaming wildly against the dictators. Probably this is true. All the same, two at least of your readers thought that your correspon- dent in his objective article " Holidays in Austria ? " carried British phlegm a degree too far. Is it hysterical to think that the chief considerations that will weigh with most Spectator readers about holidays in Austria are not whether they will be " challenged in restaurants " or " classed as Jews " ?
Your correspondent is reassuring about this but he thinks that in Vienna they will miss the smartly-dressed women, the gay café life, the gemlitlichkeit and schlamperei, and if they have " introductions to people with big houses " they may be disappointed. Is he just to your readers in assuming that all this is what would chiefly bother them ?
I understand that 5,000 people have committed suicide recently in Austria : even if this figure is an exaggeration, surely there is some indication here of widespread horror, fear and misery which might be expected to spoil the holiday spirit of a rhinoceros. Would not most normally sensitive English people be afraid that their mere presence there calm and jolly (with passports in their pockets and " a miniature Union Jack worn in the buttonhole ") would seem to sanction a state of affairs in which such horrors are possible ?
To be aware, as your fair-minded correspondent is, of great unhappiness, and at the same time to be conscious of one's impotence to do anything about it isn't good for anyone. It makes one either callous or desperate. In either :ase it does not suggest a successful holiday. This isn't a matter of politics. In a Left Wing paper a well-known journalist recorded recently with pride and indignation how he had stood for a whole hour watching some old Jews being forced to scrub a pavement. Naturally, if he had done anything but stand and watch he would have had his visit curtailed, been unable to write his outraged account and in addition given a lot of trouble to an overworked British ConsuL It is also doubtful whether the old Jews would have profited by his intervention. None the less, his article made one glad one wasn't an Austrian but not particularly proud of being a Briton. Maupassant has a story of two English tourists sightseeing in France during the Franco- Prussian War and watching, with the utmost tact, composure, common sense and fundamental decency, while a Prussian officer bullies a Frenchman in the train. It's a brilliant story, but one hoped that brand of English tourist had died out.
No doubt we should all behave with equal British phlegm, but instead of seeking out opportunities of displaying it, should we not avoid them ?
Why take a holiday in Austria ? I should like to know what other Spectator readers feel ?—Yours truly,
Previous page
