World Jewish Congress Appeals to Bolivian President to Abrogate Anti-jewish Decree

The World Jewish Congress today addressed a message to President Enrique Hertzog of Bolivia pointing out that the decree which he had signed authorizing the special investigation of the financial assets of all Semitic immigrants to Bolivia since 1937, “is the first instance of anti-Jewish legal discrimination after the collapse of the Axis powers and the first ever to be enacted in the Western Hemisphere.”

Stressing the belief that President Hertzog probably did not realise the Nazi Nuremberg Law connotations of the act, Dr. Robert Marcus, political director of the Congress, said: “Unless Bolivia means to abrogate its obligations as a member of the United Nations and a signatory to the U.N. Charter prohibiting discrimination and promoting human rights, and to repudiate its democratic traditions, I am certain this decree will be amended or abrogated.”