All Jews between the ages of 16 and 55 throughout Germany and Slovakia have been drafted for forced labor and sent to special camps, while Jewish shops all over Slovakia have been seized by the Government and turned over to soldiers returning from the Polish front as reward for their participation in the war.
Information to this effect reached Paris today from Bratislava and from Switzerland and Scandinavian countries, substantiating an announcement on the French radio last night that the entire Jewish population in the Reich had been interned in camps for forced labor.
Information from reliable sources said that Nazi authorities had been preparing for the mobilization of Jews, including women, for forced labor by ordering Jewish communities throughout the Reich to distribute special questionnaires to all Jewish men and women between the ages of 16 and 55 to be filled out and submitted to the local authorities “for statistical purposes.”
An announcement to this effect was also published in the Nazi-controlled Jewish publication in Berlin, Das Juedische Nachrichtenblatt. Puzzled over the meaning of this special Jewish registration, many Jews believed it was conducted for the purpose of allotting special food rations for Jews. The real purpose soon became obvious when Nazi authorities notified central Jewish bodies that they should expect the possibility of an announcement calling all Jews, men and women alike, to do forced labor.
The Swiss daily Der Bund reports that the Gestapo has worked out a detailed plan of. dividing the entire Jewish population into labor battalions supervised by S.S. men (elite guards). The newspaper adds that the fate of the Jewish women is so far unknown. However, reports from Scandinavian countries declare that many Jewish girls have already been sent to unknown destinations for forced labor.
Parallel with the introduction of forced labor for Jews, the German authorities issued instructions to all German export firms to approach dismissed Jewish representatives abroad and induce them to resume their licenses for handling German exports. This step was said to have been taken because of German’s desperate need of foreign currency.
Reports from Amsterdam and Zurich said the order to reinstate Jewish commercial representatives abroad was part of a drive proclaimed in Germany under the slogan,
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