An officially-encouraged network of “Aryans” in the Reich and German travel agencies, which sells forged visas to desperate Jews in the guise of bonafide foreign immigration certificates, was revealed here today.
The latest development in this scheme came to light when six German Jews, charged with entering France on forged visas, were acquitted on the State attorney’s statement to the court that he was convinced the defendants were innocent victims of German forgers. One of the Jews died in prison while awaiting trial.
At the same time, the HIAS-ICA Emigration association voiced the suspicion that the report of Bolivia’s opening her doors to refugees was started by racketeering travel agencies seeking to profit from the refugees’ plight by promising to obtain for them visas, which would later prove invalid. Denouncing as “misleading” the rumor that the South American Republic had thrown her gates open to European Jews, the association stated that only individual immigrants whose visa applications had been approved by the Bolivian Government could enter that country. Altogether, only 200 Bolivian visas have been issued to German Jews in 1938.
The Gestapo, it was learned, is encouraging racketeering German travel agencies to advertise that they can obtain visas without difficulty when steam-ship tickets are bought. In addition, a nest of “Aryans” throughout the Reich is obtaining money from Jews on the promise to secure for them foreign visas, which later prove to be forged. The Gestapo’s action was explained here as a measure to increase the emigration of Jews from the Reich by all possible methods in the face of restrictions on refugee entry imposed by many countries.
The Paris police will be increased by 225 men in January to enforce a stricter check on illegal immigrants, it was announced today. Surprise was expressed when New York newspapers arrived here representing Dr. David Lvovitch, vice-president of the World ORT Union, as saying that the French Government would permit 15,000 illegal immigrants to remain in the country if they settled in this organization’s colony near Bordeaux. The statement is considered to be unjustified. The Paris office of the ORT declared that only 36 illegal immigrants had been settled in the Bordeaux colony.
Meanwhile, two Danzig Jewish leaders, delegated by the Free City’s Jewish community, arrived here to confer with officials of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the HIAS-ICA and other Jewish relief organization on plans to rescue the 4,000 Danzig Jews, who have been threatened with internment in concentration camps to be built in the vicinity of Danzig if they do not emigrate by April.
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.
