Czechoslovak Cabinet Scores Anti-jewish Disturbances; Jewish Community Property Returned

The Czechoslovak cabinet has adopted a resolution condemning the recent anti-Jewish ricts in Slovakia, and has urged the Slovak National Council to investigate the distrubances and compensate the victims, it was announced here today.

The cabinet’s action came after a meeting yesterday at which Vice Premier Vilem Siroky reported on the rict, last week, in the central Slovakian town of Topolcany in which 68 Jews were injured.

Warning that such viclence was “apt to severely damage the Republic’s honer,” the resolution stated: “The Government is determined to prevent by every means the spreading of racial hatred by Hlinka (pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic storm troop organization) fascist elements. Such things are characteristic of Hitlerite barbarity and must not occur in a democratic republic whose relations with its Jewish citizens have traditionally be on a high standard. The Government is bound to consider attempts to spread anti-Semitism as fascist attacks upon the new state and its democratic constitution, and will, therefore, defend the republic with utmost determination against such attempts.”

Meanwhile, a sub-committee of the Ministry of Labor and the Prague Jewish community council have reached an agreement concerning some of the Jewish property which is under national adminstration. Under a plan approved this week, property which belonged to the “Aeltestenrat der Juden,” an organization set up by the Nazis to handle Jewish affairs, will be made available to the community council. This is mainly property which belonged to the community before the war.

The rest of the Jewish property, however, will remain under state administration, and may possibly be used for paying compensation for war damages to Jews, and perhaps, non-Jews, also.