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Marie Jahoda über die Safe-Affäre Wien, 5. Januar 1937 We were all taken to the State Police Headquarters. I was isolated from the others and made to wait in a corridor. […]After finger printing, a woman warden took me to a room and asked me to undress after emptying all pockets. I had managed in the Forschungsstelle to take the small safe key out of a drawer and wrap it in my handkerchief. Now I put it on the table and let myself be investigated. The first thing I did in my cell was to flush the key down the lavatory. […] Some nights later, Dr. Stegerwald, the Chairman […] opened the session by saying: So you have a safe at the Länderbank; what’s in it? Where is the key? They still thought I had a lot of money from abroad, and had systematically gone though [!] the names of all Bank clients in Vienna. My heart sank. I said I couldn’t remember what I had put in and the key might be in the Forschungsstelle or at home. The Austro-Fascists were by their own lights still law-abiding. The idea of forcing a safe went against their respect for private property and public law. So they took me to the Forschungsstelle and to Döbling1 to search for the key. I thoroughly enjoyed these outings, all 8 the more because I knew they would be fruitless. After this their scruples disappeared. One day, I was taken to the basement of the bank in the company of Stegerwald and the chaps who had arrested me, who, I believe, were entitled to a percentage of a money find. There was the bank Director, exceedingly friendly, bringing me a chair and calling me Frau Doktor. I had never thought I could get a kick out of the title, but I did, having been shouted at as ›Lazarsfeld‹ so often. To see the disappointed faces of the money-hungry men when only paper emerged after a welder had forced open the safe was some comfort, but Stegerwald and I knew that he had finally won his case. The papers were long letters between the rivals for political leadership of the underground movement, addressed with their cover-name, but revealing the organisational structure and strategy. At night, Stegerwald triumphed: Now we have got you! I responded with a totally implausible set of lies. I did not know what was in the papers, had met a vague acquaintance whom I only knew by face, not by name, who had asked me to take something into safe keeping; I had not questioned him, nor read the papers, but had gone straight to the bank. Stegerwald was so frustrated that he, at a morning session, asked the chief of the State Police to press the name out of me. His tactics were a crescendo: quietly he said he knew I lied, what was the name of the man. I said I did not know; he raised his voice with every repeated question until at the end, the windows rattled from his bellow. Then he gave up. I have asked myself whether I could have done the same under physical torture. I do not know. My good luck was that this was never put to the test. Marie Jahoda Albu: Reconstructions. [Keymer, Sussex: Published by the author] 1996, S. 54–55.
1 Marie
Jahoda wohnte zu dieser Zeit in Wien
19. (Döbling), Döblinger Hauptstraße 60/1.
Anmerkung
Reinhard Müller.
© Reinhard Müller -- Graz, im Oktober 2006 |
VERFOLGUNG & VERTREIBUNG Verhaftung Pressereaktionen Beschlagnahmungen Vernehmungen unheimliche Heiterkeit schreckliche Bilder 5. Jänner 1937 Polizeibericht 1 Polizeibericht 2 Haftbedingungen Gedichte aus der Haft Erfahrungen aus der Haft Brief an Horkheimer internat. Fürsprache abgelehntes Gnadengesuch Anklage Hauptverhandlung Urteil politische Intervention Vertreibung |