It is not for want of material that news of the treatment of the Jews in Germany grows less in these columns. Writer and readers alike would weary of the repetition. The Jewish papers of the past month have dozens of columns of authenticated evidence of cruelty and even torture and death. The following paragraph in the Daily Telegraph is a mild summary of the “underground persecution” of the Jews of Germany.
The correspondent, who has just returned to England from Germany, writes:--
"The treatment of the Jews in Germany is getting worse daily. It is now carried out systematically and hourly and ceaselessly. It is an underground movement which is much worse than if it were openly done, because no Jew in Germany knows to-day from one moment to the other when he will cease to be able to make a daily living. No Jew is master in his own house. Jewish business men are being told daily by their customers that they are afraid of buying from them, and that they would much prefer that their Jewish representative would not call on them any more. Those who buy in Jewish stores are threatened by the members of the National Socialist Party that they will deal with them, and those decent old Germans who have nothing against the Jews are afraid, and at the same time sorry, but they cannot do anything. Only those who know Germany as I do, and study it thoroughly, can realise what is going on."
From Poland the news is heartbreaking. A correspondent of the Jewish Chronicle, writing from Warsaw, says:--
"Following the fierce propaganda campaign carried on by the anti-Semites a new wave of attacks on Jews has swept the country. In no less than fourteen Polish towns and cities Jews have been assaulted during the last few days. In Warsaw, serious anti-Jewish riots were organised at the University, and the example was followed in Vilna and Lemberg. In Lemberg a regular anti-Jewish manhunt was staged, not even girl students being spared. A later report states that one Lemberg Jewish student, Samuel Rosenberg, has since died of his injuries. At Cracow University in the course of anti-Jewish demonstrations, one Jewish student was seriously wounded. Warsaw University and the Agricultural High School have now been closed down indefinitely.
Even more grave were the attacks on Jews in the smaller towns. In the township of Pogon, near Sosnowiec, where a bomb was exploded near the Synagogue, one of the victims of the explosion, a fourteen-year-old boy, Abraham Rosenblum, has died of his injuries."
- The Christadelphian, January 1st, 1936
Germany
Mr. J. G. McDonald, High Commissioner of the League of Nations for Refugees coming from Germany, has resigned his office and presented his reasons in a document which is a terrible indictment of the German Government. Mr. McDonald says plainly that the passing of the Nuremberg laws has put the matter far beyond the powers of a Commission, and that it can only be dealt with by the League of Nations itself.
The long document is a repetition in condensed space of what has been recorded in the press for the past two years. It leaves half-a-million people without hope. Mr. McDonald declares that the League must attack the problem at its source (Berlin) “if disaster is to be avoided.”
The resignation and manifesto of Mr. McDonald have stirred the British Press anew, and his letter has been given prominence in most papers, and leaders have appeared in such papers as The Times, Manchester Guardian, Telegraph, News Chronicle, Western Mail and Star. The McDonald report is being suppressed in German papers, and apropos of this it may be mentioned that every little German news-boy who runs in the streets with papers has now “to prove his Aryan descent from the year 1800.”
It is not yet known what steps will be taken by the League in view of Mr. McDonald’s resignation.
Speakers at the recent centenary of railways in Germany declared that among the 630,000 employees of the German railways there is not one Jew left.
Over 1,200 Aryan girls are now unemployed in Hamburg alone, through having to leave their Jewish employers, under the Nuremberg laws. Labour camps are to be formed for them.
Police are now visiting the homes of Jews who hold passports and cancelling the world “abroad,” thus confining them to Germany. This is to ensure that none shall depart without complying with the latest regulations concerning property and funds.
The slaughter of animals according to the Jewish code was long ago prohibited by the Nazis, and now the import of such meat is also prohibited.
For the future, says a new Police regulation, neither Jews nor foreigners are to enjoy the same police protection as German citizens. A black list of Jewish musicians and composers has been compiled going back to 1780. It is for help in the purifying of German music from the work of such as Mendelssohn and Cowan.
“Not a single Jew will be left in the Saar by next March,” declares the Nazi Commissioner for the Saar region.
A mission consisting of Sir Herbert Samuel, Viscount Bearsted, and Mr. Simon Marks sailed on January 15th. The authorised statement of its object is:--
"The object of the mission to the United States is exploratory. The delegation will seek to take counsel with all sections of those interested in America with a view to the preparation of a scheme to promote the emigration of Jews from Germany and to assist the emigrants to start enterprises and find occupations in their new homes."
A correspondent writing to the Jewish Chronicle on January 10th on the subject of the Jerusalem Broadcasting Station soon to be in operation, points out that these transmissions will not be available to British listeners unless the North Regional (Great Britain) is closed. The reason is that both stations are on the same wave length. If Jerusalem is to be heard in Britain it can only be when the North Regional is not operating.
Miss Henrietta Szold, the mother of the Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organisation of America, has just celebrated her 75th birthday anniversary. She is leaving Palestine for New York to organise special collections for the settlement of Jewish children in Palestine. The Hadassah has given her £2,000 towards her purpose as a birthday present.
Nineteen Jewish families, the first detachment of a number who are being carefully trained for work on the land, left Germany this month (January) for the Argentine.
The season’s citrus shipments from Palestine up to December 22nd total 1,665,000 cases, which is 600,000 cases more than at the same date in 1934. The latest report (January 17th) is 2,319,650 cases.
Addressing the Kayemeth Conference last week, Mr. Ussishkin announced an anonymous donation of £10,000 from an English Jew and one of £4,000 from a resident of Palestine.
Approximately 4,500 Jews entered Palestine during November; 5,631 Jews entered Palestine as immigrants during October, 399 of them entering the country under the capitalist category. The net increase in the Jewish population of the country at the end of October amounted to 7,397.
Jewish immigration into Palestine during 1935 amounted to approximately 62,000 states the Jewish Telegraph Agency. This figure includes 4,525 capitalists. The figures for 1934 were 42,359, including 3,564 capitalists.
- The Christadelphian, February 1st, 1936
Hundreds of Jewish shops have been wrecked and looted in Lemberg (Poland). The Synagogue was attacked and worshippers, including the Rabbi, wounded. Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated and tombstones overthrown in other parts of Poland. - The Christadelphian, June 1st, 1936