Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic policy has not been relaxed, it is declared in a report made public by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, national chairman of fund-raising activities of the Joint Distribution Committee. The report is based upon the findings of Joseph C. Hyman, secretary of the organization, who recently visited Germany.
Since the beginning of the Hitler regime 125,000 Jews have lost their jobs, it is stated. “This multitude of 125,000 persons and their dependent families are rendered destitute,” the report explains, “because, as Jews, they were obliged to leave their occupations, their posts and their professions. It is from this group that the bulk of the army of refugees, numbering over 50,000, is recruited.”
Describing the attempts of the German Jews to cope with growing unemployment and destitution, the report declares that “there are two sources of income available for the relief activities now carried on by the German Jewish organizations themselves: (1) The taxes levied on the Jewish communities (Gemeinden); (2) voluntary donations and subscriptions. To meet the emergency situation, the most important Jewish philanthropic, economic aid and emigration associations have merged their work under the general supervision of a voluntary committee known as the Zentral Ausschuss fuer Hilfe und Aufbau (Central Committee for Relief and Reconstruction).
“Of the total appropriations of $1,080,000 made by the Joint Distribution Committee during the year 1933, $825,000 has been allotted for German aid in all countries,” the report states. “A little less than two-thirds of this latter sum has been set aside for the activities of the Zentral Ausschuss for work within Germany itself. While it is clear that considerable palliative relief will have to be extended by the German Jewish Gemeinden and philanthropic associations, the Joint Distribution Committee wishes to support, as far as possible, the constructive programs that the Zentral Ausschuss and the German Jewish leaders propose. These deal, in the main, with occupational readjustment of older people, vocational training for the Jewish youth of Germany, economic aid to merchants and to tradesmen and the extension of schooling, elementary and secondary, for the Jewish boys and girls of Germany.”
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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.
