Dick, I hear what you are saying.  But, it may have simply been a small way of protesting.  Then again, it may not be true at all.

What is true is that he was a Jew who was born and lived in Vienna.  In 1938, the acting troupe he performed with were in Switzerland when Hitler annexed Austria.  He then emigrated to the US, leaving his Jewish family to suffer whatever fate the Nazis had in store for them.