Sports club Makkabi

Once Jewish children had become victims of anti-Semitic attacks in public sports associations, the Jewish community founded its own sports association, Makkabi. Under the watchful eyes of their president Julius Körner, approximately 30 children and youths went in for sports. 

The aim was, however, not exclusively sportive: "The swimming pool in St. Pölten, the Kaltbad, also had a small sports corner. And young men of the Christlich-Deutscher Turnverein (Christian-German Sports Association) – they already were proper Nazis – trained there. We saw that they started with the long jump. We asked them whether we could also jump and one of us jumped two metres further than the all-time high. They were furious. They had after all learned that Jews were cowards and incompetent and now one of us surpassed them." (Zwi Gol). 

Amongst Jews as amongst Christians, sport was a favourite past-time also outside of any associations – an example was swimming in the river Traisen.