A drive to expel all foreign Jews from territories ceded by Czechoslovakia to Hungary has been started by the Hungarian authorities, according to information received today by the Budapest Jewish Community. In the city of Munkacs alone, 300 Polish Jewish families have been given a week’s notice to leave the country. Another 200 families of Yugoslavian and Rumanian Jews were served with notices yesterday to leave Munkacs within a fortnight.
Almost all the Jews ordered expelled have lived in Munkacs for many years and all their children were born there. Among those ordered to leave is the city’s Chief Rabbi. Foreign Jews living in other sections of the ceded territory are also affected by the expulsion campaign. Of an estimated 80,000 Jews residing in the territory, the authorities declare that at least 4,000 families must leave as foreigners, chiefly Poles, Rumanians and Yugoslavians.
The authorities have also begun a roundup of German Jews, of whom more than 50 were arrested today in Budapest alone. Their German passports being valid, the authorities threaten to deport them to Germany unless the Budapest Jewish Community agrees to build special barracks for them and to maintain them at the community’s expense. Representatives of the Jewish community will intervene with the Interior Ministry in behalf of the arrested German Jews and will also seek cancellation of the expulsion orders against the Munkacs Jews. A community representative has been dispatched to Munkacs to investigate the situation.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Andreas Tasnadi-Nagy is scheduled to report to the Lower House tomorrow on his bill “to limit Jewish participation in the cultural and economic life” of Hungary. If the measure is adopted, the Hungarian Jews will be placed in a situation similar to that of the Jews in Germany and Italy. In addition to limiting Jews to seven per cent participation in the nation’s economic and cultural life, the bill provides for revision of naturalizations and authorizes the Government to introduce measures for enforced Jewish emigration.
In his presentation to Parliament, the Justice Minister will declare that the Jewish question cannot be solved by internal measures alone since neighboring countries are directly affected by the above-listed provisions. He will liken the Jewish question, it was announced, to international problems such as world economy and world hygiene, declaring: “I recognize, indeed, that we must seek beyond the scope of internal regulation the possibilities of an adequate international solution at the right moment.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
