British Chief Rabbi Broadcasts Passover Message; Yugoslav Jews Urged to Make ‘all Sacrifices’

A Passover message of encouragement to the approximately 4,000,000 Jews suffering under the Nazi yoke in Europe was broadcast here today by Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz, speaking over the London radio.

Dr. Hertz told the legend of how Pharaoh, standing forever at the gates of the Hell, has been asking over the centuries every entering oppressor; “Why hast thou not profited by my example?” This question, the Chief Rabbi said, is ringing now in the ears of the Italian oppressor and will surely ring in the ears of his Nazi overlord.

While this message was delivered 50,000 Jews were being concentrated in a ghetto in Lublin, Nazi Poland. There are 300,000 Jews in the district of Lublin. The Nazi authorities plan to complete segregation of the Jews in the Lublin ghetto by April 15.

Reports which reached London today from Yugoslavia state that representatives of the Jewish communities and important Jewish bodies there, after a meeting in Belgrade, issued a manifesto to all the Jews of the country urging them to make the utmost sacrifices for defense of Yugoslavia. The manifesto will be read in all the synagogues as part of the Passover services.

German Jewish refugees in Yugoslavia have, according to the same reports, appealed to the Government for permission to join the Yugoslav army or to cross the border into Greece in order to join the Greek Army. There are some 5,000 Jewish refugees from the Reich in Yugoslavia.

The Belgrade Government has reportedly suppressed a number of anti-Semitic papers and arrested anti-Semitic pro-Nazi agitators. Among the papers suppressed are “Vreme, one of the largest Yugoslavian daily newspapers in Belgrade, and two Russian monarchist weeklies, Zemlia and Russkaya Svoboda. No reports have been received on the fate of the 50,000 Jews in Salonika after the Nazi occupation of the city.

Intensified anti-Jewish propaganda was started by the Nazi press during the pre-Passover week, according to a report issued here by the Polish Government-in-exile. The report quotes the Ostdeutscher Beobachter as stating, in one of a series of anti-Jewish articles, that there are 2,000,000 Jews in Nazi-held Poland and that all of them must be isolated from the Poles. The Beobachter claims that there are 700,000 Jews in the Warsaw district and that a half million of them are already in the Warsaw ghetto. In the Radom district, the Nazi organ reports, there are 300,000 Jews of whom 30,000 are locked in the local ghetto. Seventy thousand Jews have been expelled from Cracow, capital of the Government-General, and 15,000 have been isolated in a ghetto there, the paper says.