The Canadian Royal Mounted Police has been requested by the Canadian Jewish Congress to investigate into the Nazi past of Dr. Joseph M. Kirschbaum, secretary-general of Slovakian fascist Hlinka Party, which collaborated with Hitler, it was revealed here today.
The request was made by Sidney M. Harris, national chairman of the Joint Community Relations Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress and B’nai B’rith. Reports about the wartime activities of Dr. Kirschbaum, who is now editor of a weekly newspaper published in Canada, called “Kanadsky Slovak,” have been accumulated here by the Toronto office of the Congress, according to Don Kayfetz, secretary of the CJC here.
The reports include a lengthy document sent here from Prague by the Council of Jewish Communities of Bohemia and Moravia, the central organization of Jewish communities in Czechoslovakia. The Prague Council has charged that Kirschbaum had allegedly conferred during the war with Adolf Eichmann about the liquidation of Slovakian Jewry, and that, ultimately, 71,000 Slovakian Jews had been sent to Nazi death camps. The Council has also been reported as having demanded that Canada extradite Dr. Kirschbaum to Czechoslovakia.
A statement by Mr. Harris declared: “We have been disturbed for some time by the stories which have been emanating about Dr. Kirschbaum’s past. We have accumulated considerable information which, we believe, requires further study and investigation. We feel the Canadian Government should take immediate steps to check on this information and to determine whether Dr. Kirschbaum’s entry into this country was valid. If not, we believe the Government should take procedures for deportation back to his country of origin.”
According to Mr. Kayfetz, members of the CJC in Toronto had had personal contact during World War II with Dr. Kirschbaum, and knew him to be the principal official of the Hlinka Party. Prior to holding that post, Mr. Kayfetz said, Dr. Kirschbaum had been the leader of the Bratislava student section of the Hlinka Party.
Dr.Kirshbaum’s case is understood also to be under observation by George Davidson, Deputy Minister of Citizenship of the Canadian Government.
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