Refugees in Switzerland Invited Back to Germany

German consulates throughout Switzerland have issued an “invitation” to Jewish and non-Jewish refugees from Germany now in this country to register with the Nazi consular offices for repatriation, it was learned today. It is understood that the step was taken in connection with the shortage of labor in the Reich and that those returning would be used for compulsory labor.

There are approximately 6,300 refugees in Switzerland of whom more than 2,000 are supported by the Union of Jewish Communities. During 1940 approximately $580,000 was spent by the Union for refugee aid, towards which the Joint Distribution Committee contributed about $200,000.

Criticism of the Swiss Government for the treatment given interned refugees in Swiss labor camps is voiced in a number of Swiss newspapers. The Schweizer Republikanische Blaettern, demanding better pay for the working refugees, says that “when people are compelled to do a soldier’s job, they must also be granted a soldier’s maintenance.”

Other newspapers demand that refugee students be released from labor camps to continue their studies. They point out it is especially unjust to deprive the students of the famous Yeshiveh College in Montreux of their studies by sending them to labor camps as refugees at a time when Polish students are permitted freely to continue their studies in any of the Swiss higher schools.

The Federal court in Bern has rejected the appeal of Dr. Zander, editor of the suppressed Swiss Nazi publication, Schweizerdegens, who was in 1939 sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for anti-Jewish propaganda. In approving the sentence of the lower court, the Federal Court declared that “the manner in which the publication of Dr. Zander carried its polemics against the Israelites does not justify any reference to freedom of speech and press. This does not mean that one cannot discuss the Jewish question in an objective way.”