Ghost Waltz: A Family Memoir (P.S.) by Day Ingeborg

Author:Day, Ingeborg [Day, Ingeborg]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 46

And yes, National Socialists were anti-Semitic. In fact, anti-Semitism may have been the one common denominator among all Austrian parties, from the extreme and moderate left, over middle-of-the-road conservatives, to the various factions of the extreme right. Anti-Semitism pervaded Austria’s political parties because anti-Semitism pervaded Austria. While a hostile and clearly defined tradition of religious anti-Semitism had, during much of the nineteenth century, subsided into a vague sentiment, increasingly now this traditional kind of anti-Semitism was giving way to a different kind, the worst kind, an anti-Semitism based more and more on fear.

A farmer who barely produces enough for his family to survive does not take it lightly when a group of Polish Jews digs unripe potatoes from his field. That the refugees had been driven into Austria by extraordinary savagery in their own country, and that they were near starvation and desperate, might have struck even an impoverished farmer as reasons enough to sell them food. But in 1919, or 1920, the loss of half a potato crop in July meant that the farmer’s family starved in January. And if there were Austrian Christians among the marauders in his field, that farmer would remember their thievery far less vividly than the same act committed by equally hungry Jewish foreigners who looked clearly, even strikingly, “different.”

It might not have occurred to such a farmer to complain (as members of the urban middle class were fond of doing) that most newspapers were owned by Jews, or that Jews dominated Austria’s cultural and intellectual life. However, he would have known who owned the railroads. And whether or not this farmer truly longed to visit his sister, who had happened to move to a different province, he would have blamed the Rothschilds for his inability to afford the fare.

His city counterpart, a carpenter or a shoemaker, lived next door to the members of the proletariat. At night, he watched his neighbors come home, exhausted from a day working on someone else’s machines for someone else’s gain. During the day he watched his goods be passed up in favor of newly mass-produced items, he let his journeyman go, he faced the fact that he would not be able to afford the raw materials for his trade for longer than another six weeks. He was deeply aware of the ever-narrowing gap between himself and the wretches next door, and he would not have perceived industrialization in terms of economic development. He would blame Jewish industrialists instead.

His counterpart among those Austrian workers, who had managed to forge unions, may have felt a measure of security, trusting in the protection of contracts. He may even have looked forward to flexing some muscle under the spell of a newly gained class consciousness. But day after day, month after month, year after year, a seemingly inexhaustible stream of fresh labor continued to pour into Austrian cities from the east. Polish refugees were willing to work for a fraction of the hourly wage, agreed on after sometimes violent struggles between workers and management.

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