The Czechoslovak Ministry of Agriculture yesterday instructed local officials throughout Bohemia and Moravia to halt confiscation of Jewish property on the grounds that the owners registered as Germans in the census of 1930. The order was issued following receipt of a memorandum from the Union of Jewish Communities, citing seventeen districts in Bohemia and Moravia where Jewish-owned agricultural holdings were recently confiscated under the law expropriating land held by Germans.
The memorandum pointed out that even persons who died in Nazi death camps have been declared Germans on the basis of the 1930 census, thus making it impossible for their heirs to claim their property. Asserting that the present statutes do not safeguard Jews, the Union urged that all confiscations be made public, in order that the rights of the owners should not be infringed.
Ernst Frischer, chairman of the Union of Jewish Communities, will leave for London shortly to ask British Jewry for more aid for Czechoslovak Jews, it was announced today. He will appeal to all Jewish organizations, especially the Central British Fund.
The first constitutional assembly of the Zionist organization of Prague held since the war broke out opened here with more than 500 members and their guests attending. Dr. Paul Maerz, pre-war president of the Czechoslovak Zionist Federation, who came from Palestine to attend the meeting, reported on economic and political developments in Palestine.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
