Letters to the editor | 10 December 2005

Austria and the Jews

In Austria it is illegal publicly to deny the Holocaust (‘Let Irving speak’, 3 December). ‘Words are deeds,’ said Sigmund Freud, and in Austria we are aware of this connection.

‘There is no more anti-Semitic nation in Western Europe than Austria’? Neither the report on ‘Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the EU, 2002–2003’ by the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, nor the recent study by the Anti-Defamation League on ‘Attitudes towards Jews in 12 European countries’ corroborates this claim.

It is true and shameful that many Austrians participated in the Holocaust. Was this guilt ‘extraordinary’? A relatively greater number of Austrian Jews survived than did Jews in several other European countries. Was the Holocaust ignored by the Austrian government after 1945? The vast majority of its members had been prisoners of the Nazis. Very strict anti-Nazi laws were soon passed, former Nazis were excluded from public life for years, and many (about 136,000), though far from enough, were prosecuted.