Once, when passing through the oldest part of the city, I suddenly encountered a creature in a long caftan and wearing black sidelocks. My first thought was, is this, then, a Jew?
They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I watched the man stealthily and cautiously, but the longer I gazed at that strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain, ‘Is this, then, a German?’
As was always my habit with such experiences, I turned to books for help in removing my doubts. For the first time in my life I bought myself some anti-Semitic pamphlets, for a few pence, but unfortunately they all began with the assumption that the reader had at least a certain degree of information on the Jewish question or was even familiar with it.
Moreover, the tone of most of these pamphlets was such that I became doubtful again, because the statements made were partly superficial and the proofs extraordinarily unconvincing. For weeks, and indeed for months, I returned to my old way of thinking.
The subject appeared so enormous and the accusations were so farreaching that I was afraid of being unjust and so I became again anxious and uncertain.
Naturally, I could no longer doubt that here it was not a question of Germans who happened to be of a different religion, but rather that it was a question of an entirely different people, for as soon as I began to investigate the matter and observe the Jews, Vienna appeared to me in a different light.
Wherever I now went, I saw Jews, and the more I saw of them the more strikingly and clearly they stood out as different from the other citizens. Especially the old part of the city and the district north of the Danube Canal swarmed with a people who, even in outer appearance bore no similarity to the Germans.
Any indecision which I may still have felt about that point was finally removed by the activities of a certain section of the Jews themselves.
A great movement, called Zionism, the aim of which was to assert the national character of Judaism, was strongly represented in Vienna.
To all outward appearances it seemed as if only one group of Jews championed this movement, while the great majority disapproved of it, or even repudiated it, but a closer investigation of the situation showed that since that part of Jewry which was styled ‘liberal’ did not disown the Zionists as if they were not member of their race, but rather as brother Jews who publicly professed their faith in an unpractical, and even, dangerous way, there was no real rift in their internal solidarity.
This fictitious conflict between the Zionists and the ‘liberal’ Jews soon disgusted me; for it was false through and through and therefore in direct contradiction to the moral dignity and immaculate character on which that race had always prided itself.
Cleanliness, whether moral or of another kind, had its own peculiar meaning for these people. That they were water-shy was obvious on looking at them and, unfortunately, very often even when not looking at them. The odour of those people in caftans often used to make me feel ill. Apart from that there were the unkempt clothes and the ignoble exterior. All these details were certainly not attractive, but the revolting feature was that beneath their unclean exterior one suddenly perceived the moral mildew of the chosen race.
What soon gave me food for serious thought was the insight which I gradually gained into the activities of the Jews in certain walks of life.
Was there any shady undertaking, any form of, foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Jew did not participate?
On probing to the heart of this kind of abomination, one discovered, like a maggot in a rotten body, a tiny Jew, who was apt to be blinded when thus exposed to the light of day.
