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Konstantin Forestier

Escape by taxi from the Nazis
video length:
02:29
interviewer:
Ruth Deutschmann
photography:
Benjamin Epp
copyright location:
Innsbruck
date of recording:
2008-08-20
English translation by:
Sylvia Manning ? Baumgartner
Italian translation by:
Nicole D´Incecco
event
[1938-03-12] Armed Forces - Invasion The morning begins the invasion of the German Wehrmacht and the reception on the evening of Adolf Hitler in Linz. Immediately after the invasion begins the persecution of political opponents of the Nazi regime. By the end of March there will be around 20,000 people. Many opponents of the regime trying to flee abroad, some commit suicide, including Emil Fey (Home Guard leader), and Egon Friedell (writer).
place of recording
Innsbruck
???iuimd_video_v_zeit_zuordnung_en???:
1938
transcription:
I remember an incident at the time, which turned out to be significant later. Shortly before we were appointed as officers in the military academy in Wiener Neustadt we were in a huge training area,at the Hungarian-Czech border. I was busy with administrative duties. Quite late I went out to the street which runs from Vienna either to Hegyeshalom or to Pressburg. There was heavy traffic. I asked myself, "Why suddenly the heavy traffic?" The reason was that National Socialist troops had occupied the border stations in Tyrol, Salzburg and Upper Austria. The border customs offices in the north, on the Hungarian and on the Czech border were not yet occupied. The Viennese Jews thought: "We had better go north and try to get across the border." They managed by taking all the Viennese taxis and then some went to Hegyeshalom, others to Pressburg. This is how they fled to safety. This way the Nazis only got hold of part of the Jewish population.