San Diego, CA (special) -- Austria's Ambassador to the United States, Helmut Tuerk, believes that if he been born 20 years earlier, instead of in 1941, he would have been able to resist becoming a supporter of Adolf Hitler, unlike many of his countrymen.

"A mistake that many people made: they never read Hitler's Mein Kampf," Tuerk said in an interview following a speech Wednesday, March 25, to the Ranch Breakfast Club of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County. "Had they read it," the ambassador added, "they could have inferred what happened and they also would have been able to see this ideology which was very primitive." Tuerk said with his love of history, he believes he would have had studied Hitler's autobiography carefully, and seen "what a monster this was."  The ambassador said that while he was growing up in Austria, his country suffered a case of national amnesia

Ambassador Helmut Tuerk

about the nazi period. History courses taught in schools ended with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, Tuerk said.

"What happened afterwards was either considered not so important or too controversial to be discussed in schools," he recalled. "This has changed: in 1978 new instructions were issued to all Austrian schools to provide also the teaching of the recent Austrian history to the present, and to deal openly with what happened in the nazi period."

Tuerk said in his own home, "we always had a very open discussion so it was not kept under the rug, but was openly discussed what happened." While the ambassador was growing up, his father served as a civil servant in rural Austria.

Whenever his family discussed World War II and the Holocaust, "there were some who said they didn't know anything about it because it was in the war and they were away, that they heard rumors but didn't believe those rumors.

"And others said 'I saw a truck on which people were loaded and were deported, and when we told it to other family members they refused to believe it.'"

Tuerk has made a point of visiting all 50 states since becoming Austria's ambassador to the United States in 1993. In San Diego, as elsewhere, he requested the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community, according to UJF's North County Director Barry Freedman.

Tuerk explained in his speech that he finds among Jews an intense interest in Austria, not only because of its nazi past but because many Jewish families can trace their origins either to Austria or to the larger Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Predictably, members of the Ranch Breakfast Club were interested in the ambassador's views on Kurt Waldheim, the former Austrian President and U.N. Secretary General, whom the United States placed on a "watch list" prohibiting entry into the United States, based on evidence that Waldheim, as an Austrian military officer in World War II, participated in the identification and deportation of Jews. 

Tuerk at first handled the question obliquely, saying that the benefit of the Waldheim controversy was that "Austrians were made to face up to their past." Until then, he said, "it was only mentioned that Austria was the victim of Hitler, but it was not mentioned that also many Austrians participated in the persecution of others."

But pressed to explain Austria's continued defense of Waldheim in the face of the U.S. position, he said: "It is very true that our positions on this question are still divergent, but I would say that the Austrian view is supported by a number of international investigations, including an investigation by the British Ministry of Defense which cleared him of all the charges brought against him. But the U.S. position remained unchanged."

Tuerk returned to the Waldheim case in the interview with HERITAGE: "From what I have read of the documents there is no evidence that he was actually involved in any crimes," he said. "But when he was asked how he saw his role, he said 'Ah, I did my duty.' Many people said 'that is not enough; it may have been true, but what about the judgment for this entire period?'"

Tuerk said that the Austrian Jewish community prior to the Holocaust numbered 200,000, whereas today Jewish affiliation is about 14,000-- less than one tenth. Some Jews living in Austria may be unaffiliated, he said. 

Today's Austrian Jewish community "is small but lively," the ambassador said. "We have reopened the Jewish Museum in Vienna, which is the oldest Jewish Museum in the world, originally opened in 1895. Many of the artifacts that you can see there are the original artifacts because during the nazi period they were preserved."

A few weeks ago, "the City Council of Vienna decided to build a Holocaust monument in the heart of Vienna," he said. "It is Vienna's first memorial dedicated solely to Jewish victims of the Shoah. It will consist of a large cube of white concrete cast to convey the sense of a library turned inside out."

He noted that the decision to build the monument proved controversial after excavation discovered that it was on the same site as the ruins of a synagogue that had been burned down in a pogrom of 1421. "Many said the 'ruins are themselves a monument, don't touch the ruins,'" Tuerk related. "The others said 'leave the monument.' The compromise was that the
monument would be moved a meter and a half to one side so that the ruins would be
left visible to the visitors."

The ambassador also told the UJF group that his country "has set up a fund for victims of National Socialism (the formal name for nazism) which provides a certain amount of money--not very much--$7,000, which in case of need can be trebled to $21,000 to victims of National Socialism.
"This is not seen as compensation because as often we stated you can never compensate for what has happened but you can recognize the victims.

"About 8,000 persons in the United States have received money from that fund," the ambassador added. "Of course the people appreciate this money, but are even happier about the letter they got recognizing the injustices which have been done to them, and that they are now once again accepted as compatriots of Austria. And we have had many positive replies." 

A questioner asked why policemen still are posted outside every synagogue in Austria. The ambassador said such precautions are necessary because in the past there were terrorist incidents, including the murder of the president of the Austria-Israel Society, and an attack against a synagogue.

Another questioner asked about neo-nazis in Austria. "it is not pervasive," Tuerk replied. "It exists on the lunatic fringe and that is all, and there is a lunatic fringe in every country."