The City Without Jews: The Day After Tomorrow

The City Without Jews (Stadt Ohne Juden) was a piece of social science fiction written in the 1920's. Its premise is that a future Austrian government might decide to exile all its Jews in order to reduce the competition for Christian Austrians. After the completion of the forced emigration, any Jew found in the city would be put to death. In the story, a well-disguised Jew re-infiltrates Austrian society to find and court his Gentile girlfriend. As the net closes in on him, the consequences of a city losing its intellectual and commercial elite starts to be felt. Which will happen first? Will the lover be discovered or the Jews readmitted? This would all be a sweet liberal fable except for a few things. *First, this book was wildly popular. It sold 200,000 copies in Austria alone. *Second, a decade after it was published, the Austriad goverment and people decided to commit a far worse outrage against their Jewish citizen: instead of exile, they were murdered and Austrians comprised a disproportionate number of concentration camp guards. *Finally, to this day, the Austrian government and people has been unwilling to acknowledge that a crime was committed or to recognize any moral debt to the survivors. For those of us who want to believe in the power of literature, The City Without Jews is a very sad book indeed. --Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN 9781601640005