The representative body of the Jews in Germany this week warned all Jews who were not pre-war residents against trying to settle here. In strong words, it also cautioned them against coming to Germany with the idea of transmigrating to a third country.
The warning, adopted at a local meeting of the directorate of the Central Council of the Jews in Germany, is primarily addressed to potential “illegal returness” from Israel. No help will be extended to future infiltrees by the Jewish communities, the resolution of the directorate states, because the influx of such emigrants from Israel, many of whom lived in German DP camps after their liberation from Nazi concentration camps, creates “serious social, political and moral problems.”
Some 25 Jews, who made their way here from Israel recently and were unable to find accommodation elsewhere, have been taken by German police to the Valka Camp near Nuremberg, a German-run installation for non-German refugees from Eastern Europe. Several of the Israel returnees there, as well as a number in Munich, are reported to have embraced Christianity in the hope of improving their chances of obtaining handouts and securing visas to countries of the Western hemisphere.
In Foehrenwald, last Jewish DP camp on German soil, unrest is growing because of German administrative measures that are considered deliberately harassing. The camp hospital is to be dissolved; no new patients may be admitted, even in emergencies, and the 28 patients still remaining have been unable to take warm baths for some time. The patients, who include chronic cases, are planning a hunger strike.
The leaders of the camp’s residents committee insist that they do not object to the eventual liquidation of the camp, but to the chicanery and churlishness which are features of the present administration. To highlight the difficulties they encounter when attempting to make a living on the German economy, they point out that camp inmates, after securing all the necessary licenses and permits, attempted to sell merchandise at the Ludwigsburg fair, their stand was overturned by Germans who shouted: “What a pity that these Jews remained alive!”
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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.
