German Jews Seek Refuge in Illusions from Hitler Menace; Self Humbling is Called Futile

On July 1st the laws affecting non-Aryan doctors and certain other professional men came into force in Germany. But the date is only a matter of form, for in reality a great number of Jews were deprived of their livelihoods months before that date, and the anti-Jewish boycott had made the economic situation impossible for tens of thousands of German Jews.

During the first few weeks, the self-help will of the German Jews found vigorous expression. There was a determination to do something, and in many towns collections were made to assist the Jewish members of the professions. In Breslau, for example, enough money was raised to pay the rent that had fallen due for the homes of the Jewish lawyers and doctors in the city. But the next month, this spontaneous movement had already slowed down. Many people who still had some money must have reflected that they themselves were facing an uncertain future, and had better save their money in order to stave off the dreaded day.

It is incontestable that the stabilization of the National Socialist Government has put a stop to isolated actions by individual members of the National Socialist Party. There are still arrests here and there, but on the whole things are quiet, especially in the big cities.

COLD RUTHLESSNESS

But for that very reason, the process of eliminating everything Jewish from every branch of social and economic life in Germany is the more horrible in its cold and calculated ruthlessness. In the declarations made by the Government in the country and abroad it is claimed that apart from the officials’ law, which affects civil servants, lawyers and doctors, and which is intended to bring down the excessive numbers of Jews employed in these professions, there are no restrictions against Jews in the economic field. These declarations are deliberately hypocritical. The Government has unrestricted power, and nothing happens in Germany today without the Government’s benevolent toleration, if it does not actually foster it. If the Government did not wish it, these things could not happen. Pick up any Jewish newspaper from Germany, and see how numerous are the acts in this bloodless pogrom against Jewish livelihoods. Jewish market traders are kicked out, exactly in the same way as are Jewish Nobel prizemen; Jewish commercial travellers are degraded no less than Jewish “cultural Bolsheviks.” There is an abysmal inhuman hatred of everything that is Jewish. Past experience has taught us that it is not so much the letter as the spirit that decides the application of legislation. And the spirit of all the measures which the Hitler Government has taken till now against the Jews is engendered of a feeling of hatred against everything that is Jewish, that has been preached for years.

ILLUSION OF IMPROVEMENT

And since life in such an atmosphere has become an unbearable torment, particularly for Jews who are sensitive, they take refuge in illusions. They make themselves believe that conditions will improve, that the good old times will come back, at least partly. But what are we to do if the existing conditions in Germany do not offer a particle of solid ground for any such hopes?

And yet the organs of the Liberal German Jews, issue after issue, keep on publishing the same old declarations and affirmations addressed to the present German rulers. They engage in apologetics—they repeat ad nauseam all that the Jews have done for German culture and German economic life, how many sacrifices they have made for Germany. People deceive themselves by imagining that such proclamations will touch the hearts of their enemies. Several of these articles endeavor to produce conclusive evidence that the Jews in Germany are a very harmless lot, and that the all-powerful Hitler Government ought to be above paying any attention to them.

THE ZIONISTS’ ILLUSIONS

The most active group among the German Jews, the Zionists, who have never deceived themselves about the situation, are seeking a way out by taking refuge in illusions of another sort. They are drawing up schemes on the lines of the national minority rights in the various countries of Eastern and Central Europe. It is admirable to see with what energy these proposals are worked out in the closest detail. All the armoury of logic, all the arguments of political reasoning are used to urge the Government to abandon its purely negative attitude in regard to the Jews and to establish a fundamentally new system to regulate the relations between the Third Reich and the Jews. The Zionists are seeking to work out the theoretical foundations of a new order, so that the Jews should be provided within the framework of the National Socialist State with a legal status.

What will be the use of all these beautiful plans of national or cultural autonomy, of Jewish agriculture, or of an organized concentrated Jewry, if the economic basis, the possibility of earning a bare subsistence are lacking? People envy those Jews who have already left Germany, even though the reports from them are not particularly encouraging. No one can say how many Jewish German refugees there are now abroad. There may be 40,000 or 45,000 scattered in all the countries adjoining Germany. Without minimizing the goodwill of the Jews in these countries, and the sympathy of most foreign Governments, we must face the fact, however, that these refugees already constitute a heavy and almost unbearable burden for these Jewries and for these Governments, and we are only at the beginning. How will it be afterwards?

KEEP CONSCIENCE AWAKE

It is a terrible question, and it oppresses the mind, particularly when we realize that the stream of Jewish emigration from Germany will have to continue for years. It is a possibility that amounts almost to a certainty, and we must take it into account in all our calculations, notwithstanding all the various protest actions and interventions by Governments and international bodies, like the League of Nations, the International Labor Office, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, etc. The importance of all these manifestations and declarations must not be minimized. They serve to keep awake the public conscience of the world. They may make the National Socialist rulers more cautious in carrying out their anti-Jewish plans, and to some extent moderate the application of their activities, the pace at least, if not the actual fact. But no fundamental transformation in National Socialist mentality with regard to the Jews will be achieved in this way. Nevertheless the efforts made to bring up the problem of the German Jews constantly before the forum of world public opinion must not cease.