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Hungarian Government Orders Confiscation of All Property Owned by Jews

April 17, 1944
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The virtual confiscation of all property owned by Jews in Hungary and the “Aryanization” of Jewish businesses was declared yesterday in an order issued in Hudspest by the pro-Nazi Hungarian puppet government. The decree covers real estate, jewelry, cash, securities and anything else of value.

According to a dispatch of the German Transkontinent agency the decree “imposes the obligation on every Jew to register his property with competent financial offices.” The obligation to register includes non-Jews who are keeping property of any kind for Jews. “From now on Jews are no longer allowed to possess securities or interest counterfoils belonging to them,”the dispatch declared. All assets, including gold and jewels, must be deposited in banks under the decree, which promised that “safes becoming to Jews will remain sealed,” though their contents must be registered.

Even post office savings accounts and other current accounts are subject to “registration,” the dispatch said, and “only 1,000 pengoes per month may be paid out to Jews from these sources,” except for sums to be used specifically for wages, taxes or goods to be delivered. Under a special provision of the decree, Transkontiment said, the Minister of Trade in the puppet government is empowered to appoint a “business manager” for any commercial or industrial enterprise “at least one of whose owners is a Jew.” “Any property coming under this order may be neither sold nor pawned,” the decree states. “Its transfer is also strictly forbidden.”

Another decree issued by the Hungarian Government deprives all Jewish druggists of their Licenses, the Sudapast radio reported. The Hungarian newspaper Pest reaching here today reports that the dismissal of all Jews working on Hungarian newspapers has been completed.

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