ABSTRACT
A wave of antisemitic student violence swept through eleven countries in East-Central Europe between 1919 and 1923. With a particular focus on student violence in Austria and Romania, this chapter analyses the repertoires of antisemitic student violence of the early 1920s as a transitional phase between group violence and what Ehud Sprinzak calls the “revolutionary terrorism” of fascist movements. Few of the student movements embraced bomb-throwing or political assassination, but all used strategic acts of violence to create an atmosphere of terror that made it impossible for other students to attend classes. Targeted group violence against Jewish students in canteens and lecture theatres encouraged the victims to stay away from the universities through fear. Street rallies, singing, shouting, sit-ins, and assaults on the offices of senior university officials demonstrated that it was the antisemitic students, not the authorities, who controlled campuses. By ensuring that universities were unable to safeguard the physical safety of their students, the antisemitic students attempted to force professors and administrators to acquiesce to their demands. And many of them did so.
