Hungarian Jews, variously estimated at from 800,000, to 1,250,000, including those in the former Rumanian territory, were faced today with a threat of mass expulsion, described by Premier Nicolas von Kallay as the “ultimate solution of the Hungarian-Jewish problem.”
Kallay’s term for deportation was “colonization,” used in an address before a meeting of the Hungarian Life party, as broadcast by the Budapest radio. He declared that Jews must be excluded from any property rights and the use of Hungarian soil.
A “racial law” instead of the present “Jewish Law,” it was indicated, would be used against the Jews, thus changing the question of dealing with persons of the Jewish faith to one of dealing with those of “Jewish ancestry.”
The Hungarian Government has already confiscated implements on Jewish farms of more than 500 acres. Such payments as are to be made for Jewish-owned expropriated land would be made in non-negotiable bonds, it was indicated.
Kallay declared that he was advocating measures to speed up the elimination of all Jews from Hungarian social, economic and political life. He said that the only solution was their “colonization”
What Kallay meant by “colonization” appeared uncertain. Some observers suggested that it was a euphemism for eventual expulsion of all Jews from Europe, or another term for concentration of all Jews in a ghetto somewhere in Europe.
Kallay was quoted as giving the Jewish population as numbering 800,000, but von Popkay, chief of the Hungarian minorities department, last week put the figure at 1,250,000.
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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.
