A Week’s Events in Review

The attention of the world will be focused today on Danzig.

Having regained the Saar territory, the Nazis in Germany are now looking forward to the results of today’s elections of the Volkstag in Danzig which will practically turn the Free City into a Nazi State, where the Jews will be treated just as they are being treated in Germany.

The forces mobilized by the Nazis in Germany for the elections in Danzig show how much hope the Nazi government is placing in the results of these elections, which may eventually return the Danzig Corridor to Germany. The fact that Goering, Goebbels, Hess, Streicher and Rust—all aces of Nazi Germany—were sent to Danzig by Hitler to influence the elections, makes it clear that the Nazi rulers are already considering Danzig a part of Germany.

NAZI VICTORY HELD CERTAIN

That the Nazis will score a victory in today’s elections, there is no doubt. The majority which they will receive today will give them a chance to change the constitution of the Free City, even though officially the city is under the supervision of the League of Nations. As a matter of fact, the League High Commissioner for Danzig, Sean Lester, was told this week in plain language by Arthur Greiser, Nazi head of the Danzig Senate, that he might just as well pack his luggage.

The impertinent tone in which the Nazi leader of Danzig spoke to the League of Nations representative seems to indicate that the Nazis in Danzig have little fear of what the League may do to hamper their activities. Certainly they do not fear any intervention on the part of the League of Nations with regard to their activities against the Jews.

1933 TURNING POINT FOR DANZIG JEWS

The Jewish situation in Danzig has been growing worse ever since 1933, when the Nazis obtained practical control over the city administration. It was then that an order was issued that every school teacher must become a member of the Nazi Teachers Association, or he could not continue in his position.

Following this first Nazi regulation, other regulations were issued eliminating Jews from municipal positions. Jewish doctors were dismissed from the staffs of the local hospitals, Jewish lawyers were no longer invited by the court administration to represent the State. Jewish employes were dismissed from institutions that were only indirectly connected with the municipality.

Along with the practical introduction of the “Aryan paragraph” in Danzig, a severe anti-Jewish boycott propaganda developed, reminiscent of the first days of the boycott conducted in Germany immediately after the Nazis came into power there. This boycott in Danzig, under the very eyes of the High Commissioner of the League of Nations, has ruined many of the Jewish traders in the Free City and has affected even Jewish artisans, not to mention Jewish employes who were dismissed from many non-Jewish enterprises under pressure of the local Nazis.

The terrorism against the Jews in Danzig has assumed such proportions that only two months ago Mr. Lester found it necessary to submit a special report on the situation to the League of Nations. The report has not, however, led to any alleviation of the Jewish position.

FATE WILL BE SIMILAR TO REICH JEWRY’S

With today’s elections, turning the control of Danzig over to the Nazis legitimately, the fate of the Jews in Danzig will not be very different from that in Germany. The fact that the Polish government and the League of Nations are still officially considered partners in Danzig is of little consolation since both Poland and Geneva will not be in a position to do much now that Danzig is practically, though not officially, becoming a part of Germany.

Many Jews in Danzig who are Polish citizens will of course leave the Free City after today’s elections and will return to Poland. The rest of the Jewish population there will have to emigrate to other countries, there to suffer the same fate as the Jewish refugees from Germany.

REICH EMIGRATION GIVEN NEW IMPETUS

The wave of Jewish emigration from Germany which subsided a few months ago was given impetus this week, when it became clear that the Nazi government is resuming its anti-Jewish campaign with the sole aim of forcing more Jews out of the country. A plan for a systematic emigration of at least 20,000 Jews a year was discussed this week by Jewish leaders in Germany, in order to evacuate the entire Jewish population from Germany within the next twenty-five years.

The tragic position of German Jewry was established this week by Anthony Eden, the traveling British diplomat who was trying to sell peace to Europe. Captain Eden succeeded very well in selling his peace ideas to Moscow. He did not, however, meet with success in Warsaw. He succeeded even less in Berlin where war talk is carried on openly.

BRITISH PONDER OPENING TRANSJORDAN

In connection with the war fear now prevailing in Europe, the British Colonial Office began to consider this week the advisability of opening Transjordan to Jewish immigration. The British government, with its experience of the last World War, knows that it can very well depend upon the Jews in the Near East in case any future war should affect British interests there. On the other hand, she is also aware of the fact that Germany, being ambitious to obtain more colonies, may stir up the Arabs in Palestine and Transjordan against the British administration, and even help them with aeroplanes and tanks, just as she is now helping Ethiopia against Italy.

It is for this reason that British statesmen have now turned their eyes toward Transjordan with a view of permitting Jewish immigration there, in order to create a basis for Jewish support in case of war. It is for this reason that the immigration laws for Palestine may also be relaxed.

The opening of Transjordan to Jews will be officially demanded by Colonel Wedgwood at one of the next sessions of the British Parliament, according to a statement made by him this week. In his statement, Colonel Wedgwood said he is also going to insist on his old idea that Palestine should be converted from a mandated territory into a British crown colony.

Should Jewish immigration into Transjordan be permitted, one of the major issues in the fight between the Revisionists and other Zionist groups, will automatically be settled. There will be no reason for Mr. Jabotinsky and his followers not to submit to Zionist discipline, if his ambition of settling Jews in Transjordan is finally realized.

In the meantime, the question of how to force the Revisionists to submit to Zionist discipline was the major problem discussed during the entire week at the sessions of the Actions Committee now taking place in Jerusalem. A committee of nine, representing all Zionist groups, has been appointed by the Actions Committee, to negotiate a compromise with the Revisionists. So far, however, the committee has not succeeded in obtaining any results.

MACCABIAD ATTRACTS WIDE INTEREST

The center of interest in Palestine this week was the Maccabiad, in which 1,200 Jewish athletes from all over the world, representing twenty-seven countries, are participating. The opening of the Maccabiad was a grand and glorious affair which found an echo all over the world.

The tenth anniversary of the founding of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was also one of the events which attracted world-wide attention this week. The anniversary was celebrated simultaneously in fifty cities in America, and speeches were broadcast to the United States from London by Sir Herbert Samuel and James de Rothschild, and from Jerusalem by Dr. Judah L. Magnes, the chancellor of the university. In Palestine the celebration of the Hebrew University anniversary will start April 10, in accordance with the Hebrew calendar.

A Jewish event of world-wide importance was also the celebration this week in Spain of the 800th birthday of Moses Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher and physician, who was born in Cordoba, Spain. It was at this celebration, arranged by the Spanish government, that the ban which the Jews proclaimed against Spain 450 years ago, was revoked, and that everlasting peace was again reached between the Spanish and the Jewish peoples.