American Jewish Committee Study Sheds New Light On Austria's Behavior Toward Jews And The Holocaust

American Jewish Committee
Friday, 12 February 1999

The American Jewish Committee has published a comprehensive report on Austria's behavior toward Jews and the Holocaust during and after World War II.

The report, released this week, comes as a national Austrian commission established last November has begun to examine Austria's wartime role.

The AJC report, "Austria and the Legacy of the Holocaust," sheds light on the longstanding myth held by Austrians that their nation was a victim, not a co-conspirator, in the tragedy that befell the Jewish people during World War II," said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris, who authored the report's foreword.

Only in the past decade has Austria "finally, if tentatively, come out from under the spell of its collective amnesia and the comforting image first accorded it by the Allied nations in 1943 as the 'first victim state' of the Nazi war machine to engage in a measure of soul-searching and moral and historical reckoning."

The AJC report, published both in English and in German, was written by Robert S. Wistrich, who is the Neuberger Professor of Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He also has taught at the University of London and has written more than 20 books.

Professor Wistrich reviews the complex mix of inherent anti-Semitism and international politics that served as the foundation of Austria's postwar mythology about its role during and after the war. He also provides details about recent attempts in Austria to confront its past, and the events that led to the beginnings of a shift in how Austrians perceive themselves and their nation.

Indigenous Jew-hatred in pre-1939 Austria was greater than in Germany and Austrians were disproportionately involved in planning and implementing the "Final Solution," writes Professor Wistrich. But rampant anti-Semitism did not end after the war, even though Austria's Jewish population had been reduced to a mere 4,000 people.

A British lawmaker who visited Austria in 1946 as a member of the Anglo-American Commission for Palestine concluded in his 1947 report that the Jewish community in Vienna would either have to totally assimilate or leave the country.

Returning Austrian soldiers who had served with the Nazi forces were warmly received upon their return and given preference over Jewish survivors in reclaiming seized property. "Great efforts were made to integrate the former Nazis, the bulk of whom were amnestied in 1948 and who represented potential voters for the major political parties," according to Professor Wistrich.

Austria's capacity to ignore its role during the war was aided by the stance adopted by the United States and other western powers. With the onset of the Cold War, the "Allies considered it counterproductive to dwell on Austria's Nazi and anti-Semitic past at a time when Soviet Communism was rapidly engulfing neighboring countries in East-Central Europe," writes Wistrich.

Meanwhile, in the 1945-50 period, Austrian leaders tolerated, and some even encouraged, the widespread anti-Semitic views held by the population, while remaining intransigent over the issue of restitution and compensation for Jewish survivors.

"No Austrian politician, whether of the right or the left, saw it as his task to try to counteract the anti-Semitic opinions of the population. Nor did any see fit to express any remorse about the fate of the Jews, or to confront unpalatable facts about the Austrian role in the Holocaust," writes Professor Wistrich. "Underlying Austria's stance was the assumption that it had been 'the first victim' of Nazism, a claim enshrined in the 1943 Moscow declaration of the Allies."

Wistrich points out that the continued strength of anti-Jewish prejudice in the 1960s and 1970s, despite growing economic prosperity, political stability, and self-confidence in an independent Austria, was the price paid for failing to tackle the Holocaust legacy at its roots.

Austria's unwillingness to confront the implications of the Holocaust was epitomized by the 1986 election of Kurt Waldheim as president of Austria. His victory came after the former UN Secretary General revealed, under international pressure, his own wartime role as a member of a SS unit.

The six-year Waldheim Affair did lead to a shift in Austria's approach to the Holocaust era. Among the developments during the past eight years:

** In July 1991, Chancellor Franz Vranitzky publicly acknowledged Austrian coresponsiblity for what happened in the Third Reich, and on a visit to Israel in 1993, he acknowledged Austria's complicity in the Holocaust;

**A Jewish museum opened in Vienna in 1993;

**Austria established in 1995 a National Fund to provide modest payments to Holocaust survivors;

**Austria created an official historic commission of inquiry to investigate the issue of Jewish property in Austria confiscated during World War II.

**Austria has taken the lead in addressing the thorny international issue of restitution of looted art.

These developments, backed by both of the main parties, signal their abandonment of the myth that Austria was Hitler's first victim.

"There is now, for the first time in postwar Austria, a serious commitment to fighting racism and anti-Semitism," Professor Wistrich concludes. As part of this, there is even the beginning of a movement to discuss the Holocaust critically and openly, to recognize its barbaric uniqueness, and to seek to learn its lessons."

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org