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Czechoslovak Minister Calls on Countrymen to Resist Nazi Order for Sterilization of Jews

January 7, 1944
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Czechoslovakian Jews, who are married to “Aryans” or are “useful” to the German authorities, are being presented with the same alternative recently offered many Dutch Jews: sterilization or deportation, it was revealed today by Hubert Ripka, deputy Foreign Minister of the Czechoslovakian Government-in-Exile.

In a broadcast to his homeland, Mr. Ripka recalled that Dutch doctors had refused to sterilize Jews and that Dutch churches had protested the order. He called on all Czechs and Slovaks to assist “the Jewish martyrs.” The deputy Foreign Minister expressed the belief that “no Czech doctor will be found who will morally degrade himself by participating in a crime which completes the measures of all crimes of our enemy.”

“Your Jewish compatriots,” he told his countrymen, “are victims of the same violence and brutality of which you have been victims, Our nation must enter the next period of history unsullied and clean. Democracy and humanity formed the spirit of our history and they will continue to lead us in our relations with our Jewish fellow citizens.”

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