Hitlerite Murder, Torture and Boycott Methods Told

A casual visitor here might easily pass through the city, or even spend two or three days, without remarking anything unusual. Certainly, he would see no excesses, nor would he hear anything tending to suggest that the placid German has during the past few weeks reverted in the eyes of the world to the character portrayed in so many of the War cartoons.

Arriving in Berlin on Good Friday, early morning, I found the streets still asleep. Here and there a solitary policeman lolled and yawned, very much like the policemen of New York or London on a holiday morning.

Friedrichstrasse, with its famous shops and its display of splendor, seemed hardly aware that its signs and the legends posted over its windows had become of interest to the greater part of humanity.

It needed but a few steps, however, to be confronted with something new, something surely a part of the present troubled state of affairs. A shop draped in brown, its windows crowded with strange new uniforms, armulets, bands of black, blue and yellow, revolver pouches, belts and all the paraphernalia of swashbuckling and militarism. All this was so arranged as to radiate from a central point, the single focus out of which it seemed to grow—a large photograph of Adolf Hitler. There were many such shops along the Friedrichstrasse, and in the neighboring side streets.

As the day grew older, and the streets filled with people, one noticed the unusually large proportion of Germans dressed in uniform. Everywhere the brown shirt predominated, some with the dreaded S.A. armulet, members of the Storm Detachments which have been responsible for so much of the physical violence in Germany during the past few weeks.

It was noticeable also, that most of the Brown Shirts were quite young men, some of them mere boys, no more than eighteen or nineteen. On occasion one found Brown Shirts doing duty in the streets side by side with the police and even individually.

It is not easy to pierce down through the peaceful skin of Berlin. The yellow mediaeval blobs pasted up on April 1st have been removed from the Jewish shops. In the West End and other fashionable quarters where tourists congregate, the insulting anti-Jewish posters have been scraped from the walls and the official poster stations. Occasionally, however, such posters are pasted up in the wrong places by enthusiastic Nazis. Such was the case with a poster around which I found an interested German crowd in the Kurfurstendamm. It was an appeal to German Christian students, calling on them to help cleanse German culture and literature from the Hebraic taint.

Not only in the streets is it difficult to break through the apparently quiet exterior. In private houses and in conversation there is a painful reticence. Men and women are afraid to talk. There is a law prohibiting giving expression to any view or information, true or untrue, which might be regarded as harmful to Germany abroad.

FEAR FOR FAMILIES

There are cases of men whose names I am not at liberty to divulge, who have suffered grievous bodily harm but dare not open their mouths lest their families fall victims to the Nazi terror. I learned also that this pathetic reticence extends even beyond the German borders and that fugitives who have run away from Germany after mishandling by the Nazis are afraid to open their mouths even in such free places as Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Holland and France. Their families have been left behind in Germany and have become veritable hostages under the watchful eyes of Hitler’s myrmidons. In many cases the reticence inside Germany has even given place to a curious insistence by victims themselves that there have been no excesses, no attacks, that everything is quiet and peaceful. Many such victims have gone so far as to send cables to their friends abroad asserting that Germany is being maligned. One such instance came to my notice owing to the strange fact that I had come across both sides of the picture. A denial of excesses had reached New York from a Rabbi of the Orthodox Community on the eve of the great Madison Square Garden meeting. Since then I have learned, while in Berlin, that the same Rabbi had actually been attacked by Nazi hooligans and was one of the Jewish deputation forced to sign an official denial of the excesses.

USE HEBREW ON PHONE

Private citizens, ordinary Jews in trades and professions, avoid a foreigner like the plague, particularly if he has any association with journalism. They politely take your address and promise to telephone, but you learn after a day’s stay in Berlin that they tear up your address immediately they leave you, for fear it may be found in their possession. People use the telephone guardedly. Strangely enough, Hebrew has come into its own among those who know the language. More than one acquaintance in Berlin made it a condition of conversing with me on the telephone, that I would use only Hebrew.

Jewish organizations are in a sorry plight. Day by day news comes to them from many quarters of sufferings and injustices. But they dare not even file the information. The offices of the Central Verein, once busy with ringing telephones, are silent. The various relief organizations, such as the ORT and the OZE, finding that they can not function properly in this atmosphere, are preparing to move and transfer their offices to more congenial soil. They have been gagged as effectively as if their throats had been stuffed with cotton wool.

The terror in Germany which appears to have been systematized, commenced promptly on March 6th, and was part of the searches and attacks made on communists, democrats and Jews. Particularly savage were the attacks on Polish Jews, from whom the passports were taken so as to deprive them of immediate official protection.

RAIDS ON SYNAGOGUES, INSTITUTIONS

There have been a number of raids on synagogues, notably that reported in the J.T.A report of the raid on the Grenadierstrasse district. The effect has been that Jews in Berlin are now afraid of congregating in their usual haunts and institutions of a public character cannot function as they are afraid of attracting Nazi attention.

Since the prohibition of Kosher slaughter, the orthodox Rabbis have issued a ban against the eating of any meat. The Central Verein and the Gemeinde are attempting to arrange the import of kosher meat from abroad. This will, however, make the meat very dear as there is a tax of 50 pfennig on all imported meat. In addition, the German Government has made it a condition that the business of import of kosher meat should be through a Nazi firm.

At present the Jewish authorities are endeavoring to arrange the import of kosher meat from Lithuania. There is, however, a great deal of Jewish opposition to importing meat so long as the business is compelled to go through a Nazi firm.

JEWISH ECONOMIC SITUATION

In individual businesses, Jewish proprietors have in several cases simply been driven out by threats. Such was the case of the large cinema in Kantstrasse. The Nazi cells demand the dismissal of Jewish workers under threat of the arrest of the proprietors.

By now, Jews have been eliminated from most of the businesses in Berlin. This applies equally to the A. E. G. founded by Walter Rathenau’s father; the Epage chain stores, the Karstadt stores and the Wertheim stores. Also from the Jewish firms of Leiser, and Michels.

Jews have also now been completely eliminated from all theatres, film undertakings, and music halls.

Marz, the owner of the Scala, the largest music hall in Berlin, left his theatre and fled when he was threatened with death if he did not dismiss his Jewish employees.

I am in a position to confirm, despite all denials, that the old Louis Ullstein was under examination for three hours by Nazis before his death. It is also quite untrue, despite all denials, that his death was due to an operation for gallstones. Both Louis Ullstein and his son, Heinz, were arrested and interrogated for three hours.

Although no definite law has been promulgated, in practice Jewish businesses are already suffering serious disabilities.

Jewish businesses no longer receive credit from the banks. Demands for taxation which are now being made are executed with the utmost ruthlessness against Jewish concerns. In practice no appeal, postponement or concession is made to Jewish firms.

Jewish firms are compelled under threat to donate to Nazi party funds.

During the past week Nazis, who were raising a fund in honor of Hitler’s birthday, concentrated on Jewish stores. In many cases, the same Nazis who stood on guard during the boycott came to the same shops to collect for the Hitler fund.

The goods of Jewish firms are subjected to serious difficulties on the railways.

CAN’T COLLECT DEBTS

In practice Jewish firms cannot collect their debts through the courts.

Day by day scores of Jewish shops exhibit notices announcing that they have passed under new management (German Christian).

IN THE UNIVERSITY

In Berlin University an office of the Nazi Storm Detachment has been opened. Here there are brought Jews who are caught in the university or in the university library.

From April 1 to April 3, many Jews were dragged from the library, brought to the Nazi office in the university and beaten.