Gestapo Renews Anti-jewish Terror in the Reich

With thousands of German families receiving official information daily about their kin being either killed or wounded on the German-Soviet front, the Nazi authorities in Berlin have decided to divert the attention of the grumbling population by resuming a severe campaign against the Jews in the Reich, it is reported here in the Social Demokraten, a Swedish newspaper.

The report, which comes from the Berlin correspondent of the paper, states that the notorious Palestine-born official, Eichmann, who was in charge of Jewish affairs in Vienna and who was recently sent to the Nazi-occupied Baltic countries “to deal with the Jews there,” has now been promoted to chief of the Gestapo section in Berlin dealing with Jewish matters. Eichmann is known for his brutality in the treatment of Jews in Vienna, many of whom he deported to the Lublin district in Nazi-held Poland. His promotion now, according to the Swedish correspondent, is explained by the Nazis as due to the fact that it became necessary to centralize surveillance over the Jews in the hands of an “experienced person.”

Relating how Jewish houses in Berlin are now being raided by the police to check whether the Jews have any cash on hand, or whether they have in their homes any of the foodstuffs the sale of which is prohibited to Jewish inhabitants, the Swedish correspondent indicates the campaign against the Jews is coupled also with arrests of “Aryans” who are suspected of expressing pessimistic predictions about the outcome of the war.

“The German Government,” the correspondent writes, “has now seen itself compelled to introduce strict measures against so-called ‘ opposition groups’. These measures are first of all directed against the Jews still living in the Reich.” The Gestapo is not having a hard job stirring up trouble for the Jews, since any kind of accusations can be invented against the Jews, the article in the Swedish paper states.