Britain Assures Refugees Protection from Nazi Intimidation

Assurance of the fullest protection to refugees in England, the same as to British citizens, has been given by Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare to a Jewish delegation, it was revealed today at a meeting of the Board of Deputies of British Jews when Barnett Janner raised the question of intimidation of refugees by Nazi representatives in England.

The situation of the Jews in Germany and Austria is going from bad to worse, declared the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association in a report submitted to the meeting.

Referring to Marshal Hermann Goering’s decree for registration of Jews’ property, the report said: “The fact that the German government discriminates between Jewish and non-Jewish foreigners shows how little respect the present German regime pays to the rule of international law. Whether or not the Government now uses the clause entitling it to confiscate Jewish property, the shadow of confiscation hangs over the community and makes the Jew even more willing to sell his property for next to nothing.”

Regarding Poland, the report urged vigorous objection to the thesis that the Jews were aliens in a country where they had lived for centuries. It denounced the urbanization and “Polonization” programs. The report stated that the law depriving of citizenship Poles who had lived abroad for a certain period affected many Polish Jews, particularly in Austria.

On Rumania, the report emphasized that the suppression of the Iron Guard did not mean an appreciable relaxation of anti-Jewish agitation. Hungary’s bill to restrict Jewish participation in economic life to twenty per cent was termed “a distinct violation of the Minorities Treaty.”