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GERMAN JEWRY’S
Steps to Extermination
The Nazis Upheld Their Nation’s
Reputation for Thoroughness and
System in Their Jewish Persecu
tions.
(From Discrimination to Murder:
New York Lists 431 Nazis Statutes)
By SAM MILLER
BONN
In their journey through the mil-
lenia, thi• Jewish people have en
countered different types of perse
cution. The Nazi brand of anti-
Semitism was distinguished from
the rest by its systematic and very
German thoroughness, by its con
cern with retaining, at least within
Germany herself, the trappings of
pseudo-legality and the adminis
trative punctilio of the bureaucratic
state.
These peculiarities of the Nazis’
Jew - hating mania are reflected
in a chilling work just published by
the major Jewish weekly in this
country, Duesseldorf's “Allgemeine
Wochenzeitung.” Between the cov
ers of a slim book, the late Dr.
Bruno Blau has gathered together
no less than 431 anti-Jewish laws,
decrees and ordinances applying to
Germany proper.
Additional discriminatory mea
sures enacted by Nazi officialdom
m the countries overrun by Ger
many before and during the war
probably exceed 2,000 in number.
Dr. Blau was preparing to enumer
ate them in a companion volume
when he died last summer in his
74th year. Prior to Hitler he had
been an attorney and sociologist in
Berlin , \V here he headed the “Of
fice for Jewish Statistics” and also
edited the German-language "Jour
nal for Jewish Demography and
Statistics.”
Few men know the subject as
Dr. Blau did. He had been one of
the tiny band of Jews who experi
enced all the horrors of the Nazi
regime, from Hitler’s years of tri
umph to his apocalyptic end, right
in Berlin itself — and lived to tell
about it. With the true researcher’s
passion for amassing records, he
collected material even in the war
time capital of the German Reich.
For a period after the liberation,
he served as a research consultant
in New York to the Yiddish Scien
tific Institute (YIVO).
The compilation he assembled so
painstakingly has now been brought
out under the title “Das Ausnah-
merecht fuer die Juden in Deutsch
land 1933-1945.” It is of signific
ance not for the historical record
alone, but also when individual
Nazi victims must establish the
fact that they were persecuted in
a given manner, so as to qualify
for the hedged-about indemnifica
tion payments that are being made
by Germany. In view of the
book’s value for this purpose, the
United Restitution Organization has
given its backing to the publica
tion.
The Inexoriable Progression
On the first few pages, we find
the initial discriminatory legal
steps that, because the Nazi leader
ship was apprehensive about the
possible worldwide repercussions,
were still somewhat subdued in
nature. A case in point is the April
1933 "Law for the Restoration of
a Professional Civil Service,” which
provided for the dismissal ol gov
ernment employees "not of Aryan
descent,” but granted them full
pensions and, furthermore, made
exceptions for those appointed pri
or to the first World War and for
those who had seen combat service
in the German army. Due to such
“reasonableness,” this type of leg
islation was accepted with equan
imity by many people, within and
outside Germany, who should have
known better.
Once the principle of equality
before the law was abridged and
human dignity violated the Nazi
chieftains sat back to await the re
action. When they concluded that
protests were no more than per
functory, they stepped up the tem
po and harshness of persecution.
Almost always however, they
wrapped their measures in a cloak
of technical “legality.”
A straight line connects two leg
islative enactments, one bearing the
date of April 21, 1933, and the sec
ond that of April 21, 1943. The
earlier decree prohibits shehitah,
the Jewish ritual method of slaugh
tering cattle; it is couched in such
superficially innocuous terms of
“preventing cruelty to animals”
that Bonn officials consider it as
still valid today, temporarily and
regrettably suspended due to Allied
pressure.
This anti-shehitah bill was sign
ed by Hitler himself and entered
into force just two months after his
accession to power. Ten years lat
er to the day, the Reich Ministry
of Justic issued a circular bearing
the reference numbers 4410 b V s
I 379/43 g. It starts out with a fa
miliar legislative formula, viz.
“pursuant to the regulations for
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