The Congress of the “Verslas”, an anti-Semitic nationalist party consisting largely of shopkeepers and the professional classes, has just come to an end after passing a number of anti-Semitic resolutions.
The “Verslas” demands that the Jews should be ousted from their economic predominance, and that the Lithuanians should be freed from their “economic dependence on the Jews.” The Jews, it claims, monopolize all the important positions, and the whole trade and industry of the country, and the Lithuanians must now at last be given equal rights in their own country.
The Congress passed the following resolutions:
“Foreign firms should be represented in Lithuania only by Lithuanians, and not by Jews. Lithuanian Consuls abroad should only recommend Lithuanians for such posts.
FORCED SUNDAY CLOSINGS
Lithuanian women should buy only in Lithuanian shops, and not of Jews.
Municipal authorities should let shops and kiosks belonging to the towns only to Lithuanians, and not to Jews.
All shops should be forced to close on Sundays, even if they are closed on Saturdays as well.
A propaganda campaign is to be carried out throughout the country to advocate the “economic independence of the Lithuanians.”
“Five hundred years ago the Jews were invited to come to Lithuania,” declared the Chairman of the Congress. “That mistake must be corrected now. If all the positions are occupied by Jews, we must fight for them, and the fight will be a hard one. The Jews monopolize the wholesale trade, and demand higher prices from Lithuanians than from Jews; they have their own banks; they monopolize the legal and the medical professions. This must be changed, and posts must be provided for the Lithuanian intelligentsia in the trade and industry of their own country.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
