Newspaper Page Text
e German Situation
~A Late Summary of International Events Relative to Nazi Activities
tl TlTH American newspapers reaching the
W point of restricting Jewish news from
’ ’ Germany to a box or to half a column, au
thentic reports from Hitler’s Third Reich indi
cate that the Nazis have far from discontinued
their physical assaults upon Jews. The Jewish
Morning Journal, after a thorough investigation
bv jt» correspondents, reports that Hitlerites have
not only brutally attacked but actually killed Jews
in many communities distant from the average
correspondent’s heat. The Morning Journal in
vestigator admits that in Berlin and in similar
large cities, the Nazis are attempting to preserve
the outward semblance of order and that strict
instructions have been given to prevent hoodlum
rioting. But even in Breslau and in smaller com
munities, Jews are rounded up, forced to serve as
virtual members of “chain gangs’’ on
public works, and their property con-
hscated. A system of espionage, un
equalled since the days of the Inquisi
tion. has made it possible for envious
and malicious anti-Semites to report
Jews to local authorities for alleged
violations of various statutes. The im
mediate and eagerly-executed penalty is
confiscation of Jewish property. The
Morning Journal states that many
-cores of Jews have been killed in vil
lage adjacent to Breslau even after the
“atrocity period,” which was vigorous
ly denied by Nazi officials, was ended.
These physical outrages are covered
up by a vast and ruthless “cold po
grom,' whose ramifications reach ever
new fields every day. The most re
markable of the orders this week was
ivsued by the Postoffice and Telegraph
Department which announced that it
would refuse to deliver letters to per
son:* with obviously Jewish names. It
suggested that senders should turn
Nathan" into “Nation” and “David”
into Deutschland.” Gottsfried Feder,
president of the German Technical So
ciety, has been instructed by Chancel
lor Hitler to remove all Jew's from the
engineering and other technical profes
sions. In Breslau, the Chief of Police has ordered
the immediate cancellation of all gun licenses in
the possession of Jews. He contends that Jews
have used their firearms to attack Nazis and mem
bers of the police. In Speyer, the Mayor ordered
that the municipal bathing beaches could be used
by Jews only at specified times, “In the interest of
public peace and order.” As a final slap at Ein
stein, for his attacks on anti-Semitism in Germany,
the German Bureau of Standards, of w'hich Prof.
Timtcin was a member for many years, has ex-
Pelb-d him from the Board. An attempt by two
Americans, now' in Germany, to dissuade Hitler
and his associates from their anti-Semitic policies
hav fallen on deaf ears. Victor Ridder, New York
publisher, and Herman Metz, former Comptroller
°* N ew- York City, addressed a luncheon of the
A:’ rican Chamber of Commerce in Berlin and
^a.ned that Germany was isolating herself by
™* r anti-Jewish policy'. The German papers ig-
n ° d the luncheon, how p ever. “If you persecute
* r-ople because of their race,” Mr. Metz, a Ger-
n '-American, said, “you will have not only every
J' vv ' in the United States against you but also
Tl E SOUTHERN ISRAELITE ft
By Robert Stone
every Christian—in short, every decent American.
Hitler himself seems entirely unaffected by pro
tests abroad or murmurings of discontent at home.
In an address before Nazi Leaders at Munich, he
reiterated his anti-Semitic principles, praising the
discipline with which the Nazi program had been
carried into effect. "When our defense campaign
against the Jewish atrocities propaganda and boy
cott agitation was ordered, it started promptly and
when it was called off it ended just as promptly.
The revolution will be complete only when the
entire German world has a clean slate, internally
and externally.
International action is contemplated by the
newlv-organized League to Combat anti-Semitism,
which has its headquarters in London. The
League is in communication with representive
The»e two picture*,
which would never have
been teen by the out aide
world had they nut
been tmuinrled out *»(
Germany, #h«»w the deg
radation to which the
Jew* of Chemniti. Sa*-
ony, including lawyer*,
doctor* and i bu»inet*
men. were mbjected by
the Naai* who forced
them to itreet cleaning
tatk* and to while-
wa»h a wall in the bux
ine** quarter of the
town. When one re
fused, he wa* publicly
paraded through the city
»n a acavenger’a cart.
(Photoa: Planet New*, reproduced through the courte*y of 7he London Jewish
Chronicle)
groups in America and in other countries for the
purpose of drawing up a manifesto to be addressed
to Chancellor Hitler, demanding an immediate
cessation of anti-Semitic activity and a cancella
tion of all anti-Jewish statutes. The alternative
will be a drastic and uncompromising interna
tional boycott by Jews on Germany and German
products. That Polish Jewry is favorable to such
a policy was evident at a huge conference in War
saw', attended by leading Jews from all parts of
Poland, where a resolution w'as drawn up calling
upon Polish Jewry to avoid dealing with Ger
many in any respect.
In the United States, in the meantime, a report
has been given to the press from Nazi sources that
Hitlerite groups in this country have been dis
solved by orders from Germany. Christoph
Klausfelder, secretary of the Cincinnati chapter,
announced that “now that Adolf Hitler is in
power, w'e do not need an organization here.”
While German Jews in America continue, in
the main, to urge silence with regard to anti-
Semitic activities in Germany, Professor James
Franck, Nobel Prize winner in physics, and one
of the outstanding scientists of the age, resigned
as professor of experimental physics at the Uni
versity of Goettingen as a protest against the
mistreatment of the Jews by the Reich, w'ho holds
the Iron Cross for gallant services at the front
where he served as a volunteer, refused to take
advantage of the provision of the new law w'hich
would have permitted him to keep his post because
of his war services.
“We Germans of Jewish extraction arc being
treated as foreigners and enemies of the Father-
land. 'The demand is made of us that our chil
dren shall grow up in the consciousness of never
being recognized as Germans. Whoever was in
the war is to receive permission to serve the state
further. I decline to make use of this
favor though I understand the view'-
point of those who consider it their
duty to remain at their posts.”
Franck, who served in the war from
December, 1914 to February 1918,
won many decorations for valor and
was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925
for his research work on tfoe composi
tion of the atom and the molecule. It
was because of Prof. Franck that the
Rockefeller Foundation of America
made a very substantial gift to Goet
tingen University.
The unwillingness of distinguished
German Jewish intellectual leaders to
admit that exclusion of and the dis
crimination against Jews can become
a “normal process” has a darker side,
however. 'This was evidenced during
the past week in the official bulletin
of the Central Union of German Jews
which appealed against suicide as a
way out of the overwhelming diffi
culties. The number of suicides among
Jews who have been dismissed from
(iovernment service or who have been
deprived of private practice is increas
ing alarmingly. “We must live and
battle for our rights,” the Central
Union declares.
'The first “self-help” organization of
Jewish physicians has been formed in
Germany. A circular letter has been
sent abroad appealing to their Jewush colleagues
for aid by accelerating the granting of immigra
tion visas. “Many of the most distinguished
names in German medicine are willing to work
as third rate assistants in hospitals or to take up
private practice if they can only go abroad,” the
letter says, adding that “literal starvation faces
the majority of us.” In response to the letter,
London Jewish physicians are urging the British
Government to permit the entry of at least 100
Jewish doctors from Germany for the time being.
In the meantime, the w'orld-wide boycott by
Jews of German products is acquiring new' inten
sity. The Jewish boycott organization in London
has issued chain letters to all parts of the world,
asking the recipients to forward the contents of the
letter to ten others. This organization has also
issued a warning that if there is no let-up in the
Nazi policies in Germany, it will station pickets in
front of every store in England that is known to
sell German products and urge customers away
from the shops.
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