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Swiss Anti-semitism Driving Reich Exiles over French Border

August 20, 1933
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There is a steady increase in the number of German-Jewish refugees coming here from Switzerland, where it is becoming increasingly difficult for exiles to remain. From one such immigrant, who a short time ago was forced to change his residence from Basle to Paris, it was learned that there is an intensification of nationalistic and anti-Semitic feeling in Switzerland.

Formerly, that country was almost wholly free of anti-Semitism. Only in Zurich there was a small anti-Semitic group, which published a weekly called The Swiss Banner. Today there exists in Switzerland an extensive anti-Semitic press. In addition to The Swiss Banner, there are The Iron Broom, The Confederate, The Confederate Newspaper, and The New Switzerland, all week-lies which carry on an energetic anti-Semitic and Fascist propaganda. There are also two daily newspapers, The New Basle and the Steiner Tageblatt. Both are published in the canton of Schaffhausen, and have allied themselves with the anti-Semitic cause. The movement proper is supported by numerous organizations which play a considerable part in the political life of Switzerland. They are known under the collective title, the Front. The most violently anti-Semitic among them are the National Front, under the leadership of Colonel Sonderegger; the Confederate Front, led by Solicitor Frick; the League of Na### and the local groups of the German National-Socialists.

SWISS JEWS EMBATTLED

Under the leadership of the Israelite Community League the Swiss Jews are actively combatting these groups. In the courts of Basle and Bern they are fighting the spread of propaganda concerning the unsuppressable forgeries, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Chief Rabbi of Stockholm, Dr. Marcus Ehrenpreis, who participated in the Zionist Congress at Basle in 1897, was recently in Switzerland and repudiated in the leading papers of Switzerland the false report that he had attested to the genuineness of those protocols. In addition, there has been organized within the last few weeks a League of Swiss Jews, which will take up the attack against anti-Semitism from the point of view that the Jewish population of Switzerland has close ties with the national culture of the land.

There have already been the encounters at the universities of Bern, Basle and Zurich, where the Swiss academic youth is already well advanced in the anti-Semitic movement. It is noteworthy that Swiss university anti-Semitism is directed not only against Jewish students of German nationality, but primarily against Jewish students of American nationality who formerly studied in Germany.

REFUGEES ON INCREASE

Since in Germany the persecution of Jews and anti-government {SPAN}###{/SPAN} continues, and since {SPAN}###{/SPAN} continues, like Switzerland are increasingly ridding themselves of emigrants who sought refuge within her borders, the number of refugees collecting in Paris grows daily.

The misery among them is indescribable, for none of the existing aid committees was prepared for such an influx and the money in hand for relief work is giving out. Weekly relief payments also diminish each week. Most of the immigrants are in despair. They see the day approaching when they will receive no aid whatever and will be abandoned to dire need without a single resource.

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