Joerg Haider

“Mr. Haider, how would you answer an elderly Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust and now wants to leave Austria because of her fear of you?”

“Austria is a free country and everybody is allowed to come and go as he pleases.”

I listened to the press conference in Vienna after Joerg Haider’s Freedom Party formed a coalition with the Austrian People’s Party. I was visiting my parents, who have lived there since the end of the war, after surviving what Haider refers to as the “punishment camps.”

“I was elected by many good citizens who voted for me democratically and legally,” Haider repeated over and over again on television. I listened to comments my friends made and to people accumulating on the street to discuss politics. “Now that Haider is here, the Jews will leave and we will get our money back.”

“Frau Doctor, maybe you should take down the shalom sign from your entrance door. Haider is here,” my friend’s housekeeper helpfully recommended.

Later I attended an excellent performance of Bellini’s “I Puritani” at the Vienna State Opera and when I left the building a wild demonstration was taking place around the corner from my parents’ home. I was scared and had to run home.

I can now imagine in a small way what Jews had to go through in the 1930s when Hitler came to power. Even though Jews don’t have to clean streets with toothbrushes and rabbis’ beards are not pulled, there is that feeling of not being wanted; the hatred is tangible.

REBECCA NISSEL

Beverly Hills

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Re “Haider’s Critics Aren’t Buying His Assurances,” Feb. 14:

Bilingual education, such as “teachers [being] rotated, one beginning a lesson speaking German and another completing it in Slovenian, so that children can learn both,” was proven to be a failure a long time ago; the education was just left behind in such experiments, and our children were the ultimate losers.

I understand the outrage of those parents. Our governor would be forced out of office quickly if he’d supported such a ridiculous plan.

NICK COLACHIS

Los Angeles