50,000 Face Loss of Jobs Under Hungarian Anti-jewish Law

At least 50,000 Jewish employes of small commercial and industrial enterprises in Hungary will lose their jobs as a result of the second Jewish law, “A Magyar Zsidok Lapja,” organ of the progressive Jewish community, states in an article forecasting the results anticipated from the regulations for putting the Jewish law into effect.

Between fifteen and twenty thousand small enterprises employing staffs from four to fourteen workers will be forced to obey the provisions of the law regarding employment of Jewish and non-Jewish personnel, the article points out. There is a serious shortage of Christian labor, only about 2,000 trained non-Jewish employes being available to replace the 50,000 Jewish employes who will have to be dismissed. It is expected that this labor supply will be absorbed by the larger enterprises so that the situation of the small firms will become untenable.

Jewish doctors are gravely affected by the new law, the article states. For the next twenty years Jews cannot become members of medical associations. Those few Jewish doctors who are still members of the associations are not allowed to charge their residence because applications for registration in another district are considered as new admissions to medical practice. About 100 young Jewish doctors and a number of Jewish medical students who will complete their studies within the next few years few years will have no possibility of continuing their medical training since no hospital or clinic is allowed to admit post-graduate workers who are not members of a medical association.

There are about 1,600 Jews representing 40 per cent among the 4,600 members of the Budapest chamber of engineers, employed in private industry. The remaining 5,400 members are in state or municipal employment from which Jews have already been eliminated. About half of the Jewish engineers are working independently. Their position is not completely hopeless since to a certain extent Jews will not be excluded from public contracts. But Jewish engineers employed by engineering firms will lose their livelihood.

In addition, 4,000 Jews engaged in journalism and in the entertainment industry will become unemployed. No figures are given for lawyers, merchants and tradesmen, but it is regarded as certain that many of them will be tragically affected. Lawyers, like doctors, are tied to their president residence, as they can continue practice only as members of the bar association to which they now belong and have no chance of being admitted to another association. For merchants and tradesmen, no licenses will be issued before the number of licenses held by Jews has fallen to six per cent of the total.