Administrative measures taken by the Italian authorities today put the “final touch” to last year’s legislation barring Jews from employing non-Jewish servants.
The decree law of Nov. 17, 1938, had left open possibilities for Jews to obtain permission to employ “Aryan” servants, with the result that thousands of applications were made to a bureau specially created for this purpose by the Fascist authorities. Pending decision by the bureau, many Jewish families had continued to employ servants who had been with them for ten or twenty years and more.
Now, the Rome administration has informed Jewish circles that applications with regard to retention of “Aryan” servants which are not granted within a fortnight must be considered rejected and that in these cases non Jewish employees must be immediately dismissed. Since in almost all cases, Jewish applications made immediately after the November, decree have not received a reply, the new administrative measure amounts to complete prohibition of employment of non-Jewish servants by Jews, who are threatened with fines of 1,000 to 5,000 lire if they do not dismiss their employees immediately.
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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.
