Boris Smolar, chief European correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency who has been stationed in Berlin for the past five months, was deprived of his passport tonight and ordered to report to the Secret state police tomorrow morning. Mr. Smolar is an American citizen.
The action followed a raid on Mr. Smolar’s quarters in the Pension Continental on the Kurfuerstendamm, during which two Gestapo officials made a thorough search and confiscated the journalist’s documents and private correspondence.
After a search of his luggage that lasted an hour, the two Gestapo agents invited Mr. Smolar to follow them to police headquarters on Alexanderplatz.
The correspondent, a veteran newspaper man and a well-known figure among foreign correspondents here, answered by insisting that he be permitted first to telephone the American Consulate. The Gestapo agents refused, declaring he could call only from police headquarters.
At this moment, Elias Tobenkin, American-Jewish journalist and novelist who is in Germany to study conditions, entered Mr. Smolar’ room to keep a dinner engagement with him.
Mr. Smolar, in English, briefly informed Mr. Tobenkin of the state of affairs while the agents were engaged in their search. The agents thereupon ordered Mr. Tobenkin to leave the room or conduct his conversation with Mr. Smolar in German.
After Mr. Tobenkin, however, had made it clear to the Gestapo officials that he would immediately inform the American consulate and all American newspaper correspondents of the development, they changed their minds and informed Mr. Smolar that instead of detaining him, they would take his passport away and have him report to the secret police tomorrow morning.
Mr. Smolar has been connected with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency for the last ten years, representing it in practically every country in Europe and in Palestine. While in New York he was also editor of the Jewish Daily Bulletin, only Anglo-Jewish daily in America which suspended last July. At one time he was Moscow correspondent for the old New York World.
Known and respected in every capital of Europe for his fearless reporting of developments affecting Jews, Mr. Smolar won the grudging admiration of even Nazi officials. Once, in an interview with a British newspaper man published in the London Morning Post (April 26, 1934), Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels paid tribute to the reporter’s courage in the following manner:
“I then referred to Smolar,” the British journalist reports,” “correspondent for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in Berlin. A Jew, who had dared to send out adverse reports in the teeth of the Nazi censorship. Who had protested bitterly against suppression of his dispatches. Had kicked up such a row that his office was closed for two days–only to raise a more violent counter agitation, which had opened it right up against.
“How do you regard my friend, Smolar?” I asked–emphasizing the world ‘friend’.
“I watched Goebbels face. It registered unmistakable respect for Smolar’s courage.
“He smiled, and spread his hands in an open gesture.
“‘Well, you see for yourself–he is still here:'”
STATE DEPARTMENT ASKED TO INTERVENE FOR SMOLAR
Mr. George Backer, chairman of the board of directors of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, announced tonight that he has notified the State Department at Washington of the Berlin incident involving Mr. Smolar and asked that it intervene on the correspondent’s behalf.
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