The Bavarian authorities today instructed officials at the Feehrenwald camp, last remaining DP camp for Jews in Germany, to complete a thorough census of the camp population by tomorrow afternoon. The move followed the sit-down strike here of 200 “illegal” returnees from Israel and other lands to Germany,who protested their threatened deportation.
The German authorities insist that only by drastic measures can they halt the steady trickle of Jews who are returning to Germany in the hope of being able to migrate from here to the United States, Canada or other Western Hemisphere countries. The Germans wish to liquidate the camp, a goal supported, in principle, by the Jewish organization.
It is understood that the Bavarian authorities plan to remove the returnees, who came to Germany without entrance visas or residence permits, to the Funk-Kaserne emigration camp in Munich or to other new camps. These proposals are opposed by spokesmen for the “illegals.” The authorities have threatened to use force if the “illegals” attempt to evade official action.
Meanwhile, Maurice Weinberger, president of the Association of Jewish Communities of Bavaria, in a press interview complained that exceptionally severe penalties for “illegal entry” are being imposed on Jews and that the Bavarian Government has turned a deaf ear to the Jewish DP’s. Some 80 are currently serving six-week jail sentences for “illegal entry.”
Of 120,000 Jewish DP’s in Bavaria, he stressed, 112,000 had emigrated and “too much fuss” was being raised over the few hundred who have returned from Israel because either they could sot obtain employment or could not adapt themselves to the climate. He referred to the returnees as “transient” as far as Germany was concerned.
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.
