News Brief

German and Austrian residents in Palestine, except for Jews, will vote in Chancellor Hitler’s plebiscite Sunday on Austro-German Anschluss on a ship three miles out in the Mediterranean, it was reported today.

They will sail on board the S.S. von Steuben from Haifa outside the three-mile limit, it was said. The German Consul-General here, reached by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency for verification of the report, would neither confirm nor deny it.

A party of German tourists now in Palestine will embark for home from Haifa, which is predominantly Jewish, rather than from the Arab port of Jaffa. Jaffa stevedores who requested the German Consul-General to arrange for embarkation from Jaffa were told present plans could not be changed.

The presence of tourists from Nazi Germany in the Jewish homeland has caused a flurry of excitement. The displaying of the swastika flag over Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, where the tourists are staying, on Sunday in connection with the plebiscite was prohibited by the Government District Commissioner for Jerusalem. The hotel, which is reportedly 90 per cent Jewish-owned and named for the most famous King of Israel, hoisted the swastika a month ago when Lt. Col. von Hindenburg, son of Germany’s late president, visited here, creating a furor.

Meanwhile, a delegation of Jewish school children from the Mikveh Israel settlement brought to the headquarters of the Hitachduth Olei Austria (association of immigrants from Austria) two cases of watches, fountain pens, musical instruments and clothing. They stated that their most precious possessions were for suffering refugees from Austria. They offered to work on Passover and contribute the proceeds to aid Austrian emigrants.