Germany as a whole will have to bear the cost of the anti-Jewish war upon which it has frivolously embarked, says a writer in the Neuer Vorwaerts.
In an article headed “The Jews and the German Language” the writer calls attention to the great interest which Jewish students have always shown in the German language. Quoting figures to show that the study of German has fallen off among the Jews of Czechoslovakia and other countries where Jewish students of the language formerly greatly outnumbered all others, the article continues:
“A Balkan Jew of high position in his country—a man who knows German so well that Herr Rosenberg (intellectual supervisor of the Nazi party) might well be urged to take lessons from him—said to me a short time ago:
“We cannot see any value in nurturing the language of a country which has revived the Jewish persecutions of the Middle Ages. The Berlin National Socialist students demand that the works of German writers who are Jews be translated into Hebrew, on the ground that the Jew would lie if he spoke German. We do not care to be charged with mendacity. That which today is called culture in Germany we do not consider sufficiently worthy of admiration to provoke us to pursue German education. What do our children lose if they cannot read the Bible of the Germans, Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf,’ in the original?’ “
Germany’s racial discrimination in trade, professional and other fields will not only result in a decrease in the spread of the German language throughout the world but also in general interest in the scientific, artistic and industrial contributions of Germany, the writer predicts.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.