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Plebiscite Threat Moves Jews to Flight from Saar Area

January 14, 1935
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jority of the Jews will have to leave the country anyway.

ASSURANCES NOT TRUSTED

Several of the Nazi leaders declared today that no “Aryan” paragraph will be introduced in the Saar region if it is returned to Germany. In making this declaration, they emphasize that they consider the Jews in the Saar too negligible a part of the population and are not desirous of forcing any issues, especially during the twelve months of equal treatment guaranteed by the Franco-German agreement.

The Jews of the Saar, however, do not display the slightest feeling of trust towards these declarations. In conversations with the JTA correspondent many Jews emphasized that, as a matter of fact, the racial theory is already in practice in the Saar. Anti-Semitic propaganda is already conducted in the schools, and the anti-Jewish boycott is raging openly throughout the entire region.

Anonymous letters were received today by numerous Jews in Saarbruecken, threatening them with terror. Many Nazi tenants have already notified their Jewish landlords that they do not intend to pay them rents.

The Jewish population here is highly grateful to Geoffrey Knox, chairman of the League of Nations, Saar Commission, for his serious efforts to protect the Jews from molestation, it was stated today to the JTA correspondent.

DATE BACK 600 YEARS

There are seventeen legalized Jewish communities in the Saar at present. The oldest Jewish community dates back to the thirteenth century. The largest Jewish community is in Saarbruecken and consists of about half the entire Jewish population in the Saar.

The number of Jewish professionals in the Saar is very small. There are, altogether, about thirty-five Jewish doctors and twenty Jewish lawyers. The majority of the Jewish population engaged in business in the territory are small traders and cattle dealers.

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