[The following takes place in 1938, as German troops march to annex Austria. Here, encouraged by the unfolding German occupation, Austrian-based Nazi groups turn on the local Jewish population.]
Quickly, the café filled up with journalists looking for a refuge. Martha Fodor, Marcel’s wife, arrived in tears, scared for what lay ahead as a violent fury raged against Vienna’s Jews. Emil Maass, an Austrian who had been Shirer’s assistant when he worked for the Tribune, stood over the table and pronounced, “It’s about time.” He turned over his coat lapel to reveal a swastika button, removed it, and, newly emboldened, placed it on the outside of the lapel.
As he did so, several women at the table shouted “Shame!” at Maass, but he was undeterred. A man Shirer identified in his diary as “Major Goldschmidt” stood up from the table and announced, “I will go home and get my revolver.”
Across Vienna, as Shirer and the others huddled in the café trying to get a grip on what was happening, mobs set upon the city’s Jews. Businesses were smashed across the city, in fashionable as well as less than fashionable neighborhoods.
[…]
Large numbers of Jews were summoned by the mob to do street work, cleaning sidewalks and gutters with toothbrushes. The crowds found the sight amusing, taunting the Jews, telling them to scrub until everything was spotless. Some Jews were made to clean toilets.
[…]
Shirer was determined to make it [an immediate flight to London] work. He called the airport and learned that there were early morning flights to London and Berlin. After he hung up, he called Marcel Fodor, who sobbed into the phone, stunned at the anti-Jewish hysteria in the streets and the shocking sight of elderly Jewish men and women scrubbing gutters with toothbrushes while being taunted by the crowds.
Source:
Wick, Steve. “The Jewish Doctor.” The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 114-16. Print.
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