STARTING AFRESH

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20058, 3 October 1939, Page 2

STARTING AFRESH

YOUNG AUSTRIAN NAZI RULE CONDEMNED CANNOT WIN WAR PERSECUTION BY GESTAPO Sometimes he wondered whether he had made a trip to the moon, so much more acceptable were conditions in tills country compared with those ruling in Vienna and other Central European cities, stated a young Austrian who lias come to New Zealand to make- a fresh start in life, having been forced to do so as the result ol the methods employed by the Hitler regime. He has only been a few days in the country, but already he likes it and is full of gratitude for the assistance he was given in'England and the help he is receiving in Wellington

Sometimes, he- told a Wellington Post reporter, it semed too much to start all over again. He had had a good position in Austria before it was annexed last year by Germany. That bad gone, and now he also had nhome and no country. His parents, he said, were still in Vienna, but they did not know where he was. He could not write to them and he did not know whether he would ever see them again. Added to that, there was all that he had seen and the trying experiences he had been through since the anschluss. It was a ghastly nightmare, which he was afraid he would never quite be able to efface from his mind.

This young Austrian, an Aryan, incidentally, is' firmly convinced lhar the Nazis cannot win the war. Amonr. the reasons he advanced for this view was the unpopularity of the Hitler regime among a large section of the German people. He said that he had visited Germany more than once be fore Germany took over Austria, and that he had found considerable discontent among the people. He declared also that the Austrians would not fight for Germany if they could help it and that they were hoping for the day to come, as he felt it must come, when Europe would be rid 01 Nazism and when Austria would regain her freedom. Worse Than Before Although conditions politically and economically were bad in Austria before the German annexation', the lot of the Austrian people was more unhappy to-day than before. In referring to the anschluss, he said that one thing that stood out was the German organisation. Not only did the German troops march in, but with (hem came men to take control of all the various services. These men, he said, stepped in immediately, so that continuity was preserved.

He referred to the cruelty, brutality, and persecution by the Gestapo and the Black Guard, and said that people living in this country, so far away from,the turmoil in Europe, had no conception of the lengths to which the member:; of these organisations went. So cruel were their methods that death was preferable to being tortured, and the mental and physical suffering those people endured who were unlucky enough to be sent to concentration camps.

He said that he was arrested by the Gestapo, but he had been fortunate. They had been unable to fasten any real crime on him, and instead of being sent to prison he had been ordered to remain confined to his room. After three months of this ho realised that life in Austria could hold nothing for him. He managed to escape, and after suending 10 days in the mountains, he eventually reached Switzerland and subsequently England. From there, with the assistance he had received, he had come to New Zealand, and, although a foreigner, lie hoped to make good in this country.

Already he has learned sufficient of the 'English language to be able to iriake himself understood, and lie expressed a keen desire to get into employment.