Abstract

The annexation of Austria was accompanied by the rapid “coordination” [Gleichschaltung] of the government, economy, and society along National Socialist lines. For political and racial “enemies of the people,” this meant subjection to brutal violence and a wave of discriminatory and repressive legislation. The cruelest repression was experienced by Austria’s approximately 200,000 Jews, 170,000 of whom lived in Vienna and were now exposed to the Nazis’ unlimited hatred. Street violence and arbitrary humiliations assumed proportions never before seen in the German Reich. Tens of thousands of Jews fled abroad. Others were deported to the borders and abandoned there. The Jews who remained in the new Eastern March [Ostmark] quickly fell victim to the antisemitic laws that had been in effect in the German Reich since 1933. They were deprived of their political and civil rights, forced out of their professions, and lost their firms and shops in the process of “Aryanization.”

Viennese Jews are Forced to Scour the Streets (March/April 1938)

Source

Source: Jewish women and men are forced to scrub the street by hand. Viennese citizens watch, Hitler Youth supervise the action. Date: March/April 1938. Unknown photographer.
bpk-Bildagentur, image number 30008941. For rights inquiries, please contact Art Resource at requests@artres.com (North America) or bpk-Bildagentur at kontakt@bpk-bildagentur.de (for all other countries).

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