Loss of housing and "Aryanization"

With the "Anschluss" of Austria to the Nazi regime in March 1938, the life of the Viennese Jewish population changed within a short time. Especially in Vienna, the so-called "Aryanization", i.e. the expropriation and disenfranchisement of people considered Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws, had an enormous speed. Moreover, since the 1930s there had been a housing shortage in Vienna, which could explain the "wild aryanizations" and their speed. The so-called "wild aryanizations" were initiated by neighbours or envious people who reported their Jewish fellow citizens to the housing administration, drove them out of their flats and settled there themselves. From 14 June 1938, three months after the Anschluss, the first official evictions from the municipal buildings took place on the grounds of "not being Aryan". By September 1938, 1225 flats had been evicted in this way, and by the end of the year all Jewish tenants had been evicted.

In spring 1939, the so-called "Jewish Resettlement Campaign" began in Vienna. Within a few months, the City of Vienna sent out 13,600 notices to "Aryan" house owners to evict their Jewish tenants. Those persecuted as Jewish were to move into tenements with Jewish landlords, these were particularly located in the 1st, 2nd, 9th and 20th districts. In this way, 5,572 families lost their flats in Vienna between March and September 1939.

This was followed on 30 April 1940 by the "Law on Tenancies with Jews", which abolished tenant protection between "Aryan" tenants and those persecuted as Jewish. This was followed by the complete abolition of tenant protection for Jews by Reich law on 30 September 1940. These measures were carried out by the municipal housing office, in which a separate department called " Gruppe Judenumiedlung" ("Jewish Resettlement Group"), had been founded; this department demanded in writing that property managers and tenants give notice of termination to Jewish tenants. The result of these measures was that the Jewish population lost their living space in Vienna within two years.

The VUGESTA (Administrative Office for Jewish Removal Goods of the Secret State Police) was an organization that “recycled” the removal goods, as it was called in Nazi parlance. After the evictions by the Jewish Community (IKG), VUGESTA received all valuable furniture and furnishings for resale, in which the state-owned "Dorotheum" pawnshop in Austria was also involved.

Source:

Michaela Raggam-Blesch, "Sammelwohnungen” für Jüdinnen und Juden als Zwischenstation vor der Deportation, Wien 1938 - 1942. In: DÖW (ed.), Jahrbuch 2018: Forschungen zu Vertreibung und Holocaust (Wien 2018) bzw. M. RAGGAM-BLESCH, 2018. p. 97.