Austria opened an exhibition on Monday showing how Jewish employees of the State Opera were purged under Nazi rule as the nation began solemn commemorations of its annexation by Hitler's Germany 70 years ago.

Vienna's opera house is one focus of post-World War Two Austria's feelings of guilt about the way it quickly accepted the Nazi takeover and, after the war ended, reinstated few of those persecuted during the Third Reich.

The exhibition at the ornate State Opera House, then as now an important part of Viennese life, details the fate of 92 members of the company -- many of them Jewish -- who were excluded, persecuted or murdered after the "Anschluss."