Read Online The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas by Christopher Robbins - Free Book Online Page A
Book: The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas by Christopher Robbins
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Robbins
Ads: Link
Austria no longer existed was a compelling one, and Freud departed for England, ‘the land of my early dreams’. [35]
He was one of the fortunate few who acted before the Nazis purged the police and neutralised all opposition. Austria literally ceased to exist, its ancient name - Österreich - abolished and replaced with Ostmark, until even that was dropped and the country was administered as a series of districts directly from Berlin. Instead of a fading, imperial capital, Vienna became just another city of the Reich. Hitler’s revenge on the place of his youthful humiliation was complete.
Tens of thousands of Jews were jailed and their possessions confiscated, while half of the city’s one hundred and eighty thousand Jewish population attempted to purchase permission to emigrate by handing over everything they owned to the Nazis. The sole agency authorised to issue exit permits was the Office for Jewish Emigration, set up by Reinhard Heydrich of the SS. It was headed, from its inception to the end of the war, by an Austrian-born Nazi from Hitler’s home town of Linz, Karl Adolf Eichmann. Emigration was a lucrative business. Later, when there was no more money to be taken from the Jews, the office switched its efforts to extermination. In the weeks immediately following Anschluss , the concentration camp of Mauthausen was set up on the north bank of the Danube near Enns, saving the Nazis the trouble of deporting its enemies to camps in Germany. [36]
Michel had been living in Vienna under a Polish passport, the same one he had used to leave Germany and obtain residence in France. He was now summoned to the Polish Embassy where the consul-general confiscated his passport. The Polish parliament had passed a law introducing a slew of new regulations under which citizenship could be taken away from Poles living abroad. This was aimed at preventing the Nazis from pushing tens of thousands of Polish Jews legally living in Germany - and now Austria - across the border. [37] Michel had no desire to return to Poland to live, but was now cut off from his family. Suddenly, at a stroke, he was stateless. ‘I became vogelfrei - fair game. It was an impossible situation for me because I also relied on my passport for my legal residence in France as well as Austria. Now I had no papers and no legal residence anywhere. And I could not travel. I had to go into hiding from that time, moving from one friend’s apartment to another.’
Cut off from parents, family and friends in Poland, he was helpless. A well-placed relative in the government in Warsaw tried to use his influence, but to no effect. Michel explored every possibility but there was nothing he could do to counter the Poles’ arbitrary action. Finally, through an Austrian friend, he was able to obtain a document identifying him as a stateless person. It was not much, but it was better than nothing.
The city’s numerous embassies and consulates were besieged by Jews trying to emigrate. Endless lines of desperate people waited day and night to be interviewed. ‘I stood in such a line at the American consulate and was told to forget it. I was treated like an undesirable. And the consulate turned people away even though the quota was never filled. Inhuman, cruel, despicable action.’
The Anschluss created a Jewish refugee problem of immense proportions. American president Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated an international conference in Evian, France, where thirty-two nations gathered to find a solution. In fact the conference was merely a kind of moral posturing and an act of political hypocrisy on the part of Roosevelt. Terms agreed in advance laid down that no country would be expected to receive a greater number of emigrants than was permitted under existing legislation. Immigration law in the US was notoriously restrictive at this time. No country offered sanctuary or concrete help, and the conference achieved nothing except to set up an Intergovernmental Committee for
He was one of the fortunate few who acted before the Nazis purged the police and neutralised all opposition. Austria literally ceased to exist, its ancient name - Österreich - abolished and replaced with Ostmark, until even that was dropped and the country was administered as a series of districts directly from Berlin. Instead of a fading, imperial capital, Vienna became just another city of the Reich. Hitler’s revenge on the place of his youthful humiliation was complete.
Tens of thousands of Jews were jailed and their possessions confiscated, while half of the city’s one hundred and eighty thousand Jewish population attempted to purchase permission to emigrate by handing over everything they owned to the Nazis. The sole agency authorised to issue exit permits was the Office for Jewish Emigration, set up by Reinhard Heydrich of the SS. It was headed, from its inception to the end of the war, by an Austrian-born Nazi from Hitler’s home town of Linz, Karl Adolf Eichmann. Emigration was a lucrative business. Later, when there was no more money to be taken from the Jews, the office switched its efforts to extermination. In the weeks immediately following Anschluss , the concentration camp of Mauthausen was set up on the north bank of the Danube near Enns, saving the Nazis the trouble of deporting its enemies to camps in Germany. [36]
Michel had been living in Vienna under a Polish passport, the same one he had used to leave Germany and obtain residence in France. He was now summoned to the Polish Embassy where the consul-general confiscated his passport. The Polish parliament had passed a law introducing a slew of new regulations under which citizenship could be taken away from Poles living abroad. This was aimed at preventing the Nazis from pushing tens of thousands of Polish Jews legally living in Germany - and now Austria - across the border. [37] Michel had no desire to return to Poland to live, but was now cut off from his family. Suddenly, at a stroke, he was stateless. ‘I became vogelfrei - fair game. It was an impossible situation for me because I also relied on my passport for my legal residence in France as well as Austria. Now I had no papers and no legal residence anywhere. And I could not travel. I had to go into hiding from that time, moving from one friend’s apartment to another.’
Cut off from parents, family and friends in Poland, he was helpless. A well-placed relative in the government in Warsaw tried to use his influence, but to no effect. Michel explored every possibility but there was nothing he could do to counter the Poles’ arbitrary action. Finally, through an Austrian friend, he was able to obtain a document identifying him as a stateless person. It was not much, but it was better than nothing.
The city’s numerous embassies and consulates were besieged by Jews trying to emigrate. Endless lines of desperate people waited day and night to be interviewed. ‘I stood in such a line at the American consulate and was told to forget it. I was treated like an undesirable. And the consulate turned people away even though the quota was never filled. Inhuman, cruel, despicable action.’
The Anschluss created a Jewish refugee problem of immense proportions. American president Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated an international conference in Evian, France, where thirty-two nations gathered to find a solution. In fact the conference was merely a kind of moral posturing and an act of political hypocrisy on the part of Roosevelt. Terms agreed in advance laid down that no country would be expected to receive a greater number of emigrants than was permitted under existing legislation. Immigration law in the US was notoriously restrictive at this time. No country offered sanctuary or concrete help, and the conference achieved nothing except to set up an Intergovernmental Committee for
Similar Books
