Growing Exodus from Germany; Arrivals in England and France

The London “Daily Telegraph” reports from Munich that all Jews residing in the Rhenish Palatinate, entering Germany after 1914, were ordered by the Nazi authorities to depart this evening. In the event of their failure to leave, they are to report themselves to the Nazi authorities. This order, says the “Daily Telegraph”, caused an immediate exodus of a large number of Jews, some withdrawing their money from the banks. Thereupon, the Nazi authorities blocked the banking accounts on the pretext that Jews were sabotaging the financial institutions, and the confiscation of these accounts is feared. On the other hand, the Nazis failed to explain how they could have expected the Jews to leave the district without means, observes the “Daily Telegraph”.

The gravity of the Jewish situation in Germany is also evident from the constant stream of arrivals in England. Hitherto most of the refugees who reach England are well-to-do Germans, or relatives of English Jews. The poor are unable to enter the country owing to the provisions of the Aliens Act, although it is known that both the Home Office and the Jewish Shelter—a volunteer organization charged with the welfare of immigrants and transmigrants—have been flooded with applications from German Jews, who ask that their lives might be saved by admission into England. Although the number of such applications is known to amount to several hundred, the Home Office has declined to make public the actual figures.

From Paris, too, reports testify to the fact that Jewish departures from Germany are expected to obtain the magnitude of an exodus. Although the numbers of indigent Jewish emigrants in Germany is as yet insignificant, a much larger emigration is feared, and a meeting of the Jewish relief organizations is being convened in order to prepare for the anticipated wave of arrivals. Indeed, during the past few days, the number of German immigrants requiring free lodgings and meals has been growing steadily.

Significant light on the flight of Jewish merchants in Germany is thrown by a report related in Paris by an American Jewish merchant, who returned there from Germany after a business visit to the Leipzig Fair.

He told a pathetic tale of a Jewish exhibitor at the Leipzig Fair who pleaded with him to buy from him a sufficient quantity of goods to enable him to escape abroad with his family Although the traveller had made up his mind to buy no German goods, he could not resist the plea of his fellow-Jew, and purchased from him several hundred marks worth, and the exhibitor actually left Leipzig with his family on the same train as his customer and arrived together with him in Paris.

Talking of Berlin, he described the Jewish quarter—the Grenardierstrasse—as looking pogrom-stricken, with scores of windows smashed. Jewish signs have been pasted over with paper and smeared with paint. Any Jew appearing in the street is immediately attacked by Nazis, assisted by passers-by, who encourage the hooligans. He added that the entrances to Jewish shops are still picketed by Nazis who shout: “Buy from Germans and not from Jews.”