Le Soir reported today that 30,000 persons have been arrested in Poland and about 1,000 of them court-martialled for protesting against the Nazi project for establishment of a “Jewish reservation” in the Lublin area. The wave of protests has resulted in severe conflict between General von Rundstadt, German militaray governor of Poland, and Dr. Hans Frank, Nazi civil governor, the report said.
According to Le Soir, General Rundstadt complained that the forced arrival of Jews in the Lublin district coupled with the expulsion of Polish peasants from this area created a double crisis, but Dr. Frank insisted on carrying out Reichsfuehrer Adolf Hitler’s orders, ordering mass arrests of those protesting.
The clash of opinion reached the point where General Rundstadt sent an indignant memorandum to Berlin warning that the Lublin project was leading to moral and economic catastrophe and arousing strong anti-German feelings among the Poles. Dr. Frank, terming this memorandum “a revolutionary document,” denounced General Rundstadt as a friend of General Werner von Fritsch, who was killed during the Polish war, and demanded Rundstadt’s withdrawal from Poland.
Meanwhile, Jews from Vienna were continuing to arrive in Lublin without means and almost without clothing, all being placed in the so-called “training camps.”
In Prague, the Gestapo was reported to be busy truping up a ritual murder case against Jews. According to the official Deutsches Nachrichten-Buro, the authorities in Prague found the body of a slain Czech woman carrying marks “which lead police to suspect ritual murder.”
Today’s Paris press was full of descriptions of persecution of Jews and Catholics in Germany, emphasizing that it was Hitler’s aim to drive at least 20 per cent of the entire world Jewish population, or about 3,000,000, to Lublin and predicting that 2,000,000 Jews would be exiled to this area by April, 1940.
In Warsaw, according to reports, Jews were forbidden to enter restaurants and use street cars or autobusses.
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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.
