THE RETURN MOVEMENT OF JEWS TO AUSTRIA AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Transcription

1 THE RETURN MOVEMENT OF JEWS TO AUSTRIA AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR

2 PUBLICATIONS OF THE RESEARCH GROUP FOR EUROPEAN MIGRATION PROBLEMS XVI Editor: Dr. G. Beyer, I7 Pauwenlaan The Hague, Netherlands

3 THE RETURN MOVEMENT OF JEWS TO AUSTRIA AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR With special consideration of the return from Israel by F. WILDER-OKLADEK II THE HAGUE MARTINUS NI]HOFF I969

4 ISBN DOI / ISBN (ebook) I969 by Martinus Nijhott. The Hague. Netherlands. All rights reserved. including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form.

5 To Kurt, who bore the burden 01 this work

6 CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction XI XIII CHAPTER I BACKGROUND AND HOLOCAUST A. The Position of Jewish Return to Austria within the Framework of General Return I B. Jewish Return to Austria within the Framework of the Jewish Post-war Situation 7 C. Certain Sociological Aspects of AustrianJewry II 1. Austrian Anti-Semitism The Influence of Eastern European Jewish Immigration upon the Development of Viennese Jewry 15 D. The Movement of the Jewish Population during the Holocaust ( ) 21 CHAPTER II THE RETURN OF THE JEWISH POPULATION TO AUSTRIA AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR 28 A. The three Groups of Jewish Population in Austria 28 I. The Rest-Group The D.P. Group The Returning Austrian-Jewish Population 34 B. Some Aspects of Jewish Post-War Population Geographical Spread Demographic Structure and Migratory Movements Professional and Economic Structure The Austrian Background A Short Note on Restitution in Austria 57 C. The 2% Sample Survey of the Jewish Returnee Population in Vienna General Considerations and Age Structure Main Difficulties of the Survey The Questionnaire Discussion of Selected Questions 64 D. Six Case Studies 68 CHAPTER III THE RETURN OF THE JEWISH POPULATION FROM ISRAEL A. Emigration and Re-emigration from Israel 75 75

7 VIII CONTENTS B. Austrian and German Immigration and Return I. The Numerical Position 2. The Sociological Position C. The 5 % Sample Survey I. Introduction 2. Discussion of Selected Questions D. General Comparison between the two Samples E. Tentative Conclusions Bibliography Tables

8 LIST OF TABLES Table A/I Analysis by Residence during Nazi-Occupation and Means of Survival (1952) ro8 Table A/2 Age Structure of the Jewish Population, Vienna, December, 1954, and December, Table A/3 Vocational Structure of Jews, registered with the Jewish Communal Offices, Vienna, 1952 IIO Table A/4 Emigration and Deportations from Vienna, III Table A/5 Immigration and Emigration, II2 Table A/6 Movement of Jewish Population, II3 Table A/7 Jewish Population by Sex, Age, and Means of Survival, Vienna, December, 1945 II4 Table A/8 Percentage of Jews living in different Municipal Districts of Vienna, 1934 and 1964 II4 Table A/9 Movement of Population, Vienna, II5 Table A/I0 Movement of Population, Vienna, II6 Table A/II Jewish Immigration into, and Emigration from, Austria 1961 II7 Table AG/l Jewish Population 1949, 1958, Austria II8 Jewish Population, 1958, 1959 Austria and Germany Table AG/2 Jewish Population of Austria and Germany Table D/l Movement of Population, Vienna, Table D/2 Movement of Jewish Population, Vienna Table Dj2a Age-and Sex Structure, Austrian Jewish, 1934 and 1939 Table D/3 Jews in Vienna: Percentage of Population,

9 x Table D/4 Table 1/1 Table I/z Table 1/3 Table 1/4 Table 1/5 Table 1/6 Table 1/7 Table 1/8 LIST OF TABLES Vienna: Births and Deaths Jews and N on-j ews, IZ3 Jewish Population by Age and Continent of Birth, Israel December, Sources of Increase of Population (Jews) Israel Immigration , Israel/Palestine 126 Extent of Original Emigration from Israel, IZ7 Age-Structure of Emigrants from Israel, (General and German/Austrian-born) 128 Arrivals and Departures for Selected Months from/to Israel (Residents only) IZ9 Jewish Immigrants according to Year of Immigration and Country of Birth 130 German-Jewish Immigrants to Palestine, I January, March, 1939, classified by official category of Immigration 130

10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me in various stages of this essay. Very often these people gave their time and advice although I could not muster official support for this work in Viennese Jewish circles. In the first place I wish to thank Dr. O. Schmelz, Head of the Department of Demography, Statistical Offices, Jerusalem. In Vienna, Dr. Loewy, Dr. A. Massiczek and Sister Verena, Caritas Socialis, all gave me valuable advice and acted as contacts. My special thanks are due to Dr. G. Weis without whose co-operation this work could not have been carried out. I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr. C. A. Price, Australian National University, who read through the first draft of this work - if I fell short of his recommendations, it is entirely my own fault. - Editors of various Viennese newspapers, as well as Radio Wien helped me with a difficult task. Finally I wish to thank Dr. G. Beijer, The Hague, for helping an inexperienced beginner. Many others, students, University Professors and organisations helped. I thank them all and hope to have made a small contribution to the saga of Jewish flight and resettlement. F. WILDER-OKLADEK The manuscript was awarded the Theodor Korner Prize, Vienna, 1967.

11 INTRODUCTION The saga of Jewish flight, suffering and death has been investigated from different points of view, and various aspects of this sad chapter of Jewish history have been carefully studied. There is, however, one aspect which has had little attention from Jewish sociologists; perhaps because it is an anticlimax to heroism and monumental suffering; even more, because the whole group imbues a feeling of discomfort, an aftermath that should not have been, a chapter that had better not been written... "Historically, this group has survived its own past; but humans do not experience their own life as history... "1 This group is but a very small remnant: those who returned to the very" doomed soil" the very countries in which all the worst atrocities against European Judaism originated. Usually, they do not come back with an easy heart, they experience the anger and sadness of fellow-jews who condemn them. They also feel their own guilt - yet they return... How many of them there are is impossible to calculate. Not only were post-war records faulty; but Jewish organisations differed with others and in their own records in the definition of "return" so that all comparisons can be only on the level of careful estimates at best. Lastly, in common with other return groups, there is the unknown number who never registered with those organisations keeping any type of records (e.g. Jewish organisations). Some aspects of return migration by Jews to Germany have been studied on a sociological basis by M aor and others. In general, the amount of information available on German post-war Jewry by far surpasses the material available on the corresponding group returning to Austria. This near-total absence of sociological data 1 Maor, H., p. III.

12 XIV INTRODUCTION on post-war Jewry in Austria is an interesting and significant sociological fact an sich; the notable tendency in Germany to study, come to terms with Judaism: German/Jewish history, the question of love/hate relationship, the "German-Jewish symbiosis" - to name just a few of these fields of study, with a tenor of attempted reconciliation running through all these scholarly and belletristic efforts. While in Austria "not touching a hot potato" is still the rule, an uneasy silence with a very few exceptions. My aim, when preparing to undertake a first small pioneer-study of Austrian-Jewish returnees, was to obtain information on as wide a basis of total background and day-to-day life as possible. It is a pioneer work with all the fascination and pitfalls common to a first attempt at investigating an extremely complex field of study. Added to this there was my own inexperience and very limited financial resources. No purpose is served by making an epic out of difficulties carrying out sociological work. There was much suspicion, which had to be expected by a mainly elderly group that had suffered that much. Unfortunately the Jewish Authorities were openly dissociating themselves from the 2l% sample survey, thereby increasing suspicion. Even where there was considerable goodwill, there was no empirical material on post-war Jewry in Austria, and concerning random samples of returning emigrants as a whole. Nonetheless, there were a number of spiritual and academic satisfactions which I was fortunate to experience: first the very fact that I did finish the work - small and imperfect as it may be, in the face of all difficulties. There were also a number of interested persons who gave me the moral courage to carry on, to vary my approach when no progress could be made. These were valuable contacts, especially at the later stages of my work. Lastly there was the fascination of the topic itself, difficult to unravel in all its sociological and psychological implications. My profound hope is that my work will provide a small basis on which I, myself, and others, will build. With this modest beginner's contribution I wish to stimulate research on various aspects of Jewish sociology connected with the phenomena of "return-in-spite-of" to Germany and Austria. If I succeed in this, then I do believe this work has borne at least some fruit for years of concentrated and uphill work.