Dr. Leo Baeck, the 70-year-old chief rabbi of Germany, has been deported by the Nazi authorities to the fortress of Terezin in Czechoslovakia, according to reliable information reaching here today.
Dr. Baeck, who is the president of the Reichsvereinigung, the central Jewish organization in the Reich, was arrested by the Gestapo in Berlin on various occasions when he courageously intervened for the Jews of Germany whose spiritual leader he has been for many years. He was deported together with several thousand other German Jews in the mass-expulsions which were resumed this month, the report said.
Renewed deportations of Jews from France were also reported here today. A transport of 2,500 alien Jews was sent from France to Nazi-held eastern territory last week and more Jews are being rounded up by the French police for deportation to Nazi-occupied devastated territories in the east, the report stated.
Netherlands circles here today report that new concentration camps for Jews have been established in southern Holland, at Vught. They also released a report stating that synagogues in Holland went unheated through the winter, having been denied fuel by the Nazi occupation authorities. The oldest Jewish orphanage in Amsterdam, founded in 1826, has been closed, the report revealed.
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