Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991

You said that your father supported Jewish charitable causes and things like that.

Yeah, orphans. Orphanages.

So did he have what you might call uh, a Jewish identity that he.

Jewish identity?

was known as or did he call himself a Viennese first and then?

Uh, he would call himself an, an Austrian Jew, I think, as I would. Jewish but of, of a definite setting. Because our, Vienna had a Kultursgemeinde, you know, where they. And uh, you had to pay taxes to them.

So he was a member of the.

Oh yes, he was a member of that. We were registered at birth. And, uh.

Legally in any case, he was...

Yeah, yeah. It was a not a matter of hiding his identity of anything like that.

Um, you mentioned Dollfuss before. Um, what, what was the family's feeling about Dollfuss when he took?

Well, my father felt he was better than some of the others. He had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps uh, Dollfuss was a latent anti-Semite. That he would probably enforce some of the same rules as Hitler, but not as severe. But he felt he was definitely better, definitely to be preferred. And it was almost in his political leanings. And most of the schwarzer are very conservative.

There was talk then in1933 when Hitler took power. There must have been some discussion then.

Oh yes, yes. We were concerned. We were worried.

Did your family have friends or any relatives in Germany?

Not in Germany, no. No, we didn't know anyone in Germany. When the people came over and would tell us stories and of course ask for money, we were suspecting that they were making some of it up. They would come with a head bandage you know, that kind of thing. And now in retrospect I see that they didn't make it up and. We were trying to deny it, I think, in a way because it was unbelievable.