AUSTRIA: Suicide Clients

Gaunt mothers with hunger-pinched babies, hollow-eyed youths, twitching old men, shamefaced Frauleins big with child —in all 1,000 utterly miserable people sat down in Vienna last week to the Third Annual Banquet of the Advisory Centre For Intending Suicides. Anyone consulting the Advisory Centre is promised and may depend upon: 1) “absolute secrecy” (not even the police will be told); 2) “absolute non-interference with the final decision” (no prospective suicide will be nagged, browbeaten or cajoled into remaining alive). During the hearty banquet last week leading Viennese stage folk (not all of them comedians) did their best to entertain the 1,000 strange guests, some of whom actually laughed before they went away to brood. “We estimate that 70% of the people who consult us ultimately decide against suicide.” said the Advisory Centre’s quiet, kindly secretary. “It seems to be in mutual comparison of their troubles that our clients profit most. So many think their own fate unbearable, only to learn that it is better than that of others they meet here.”