Jewish Property Confiscated by Nazis Valued at Two Billion Dollars

At least $2,000,000,000 worth of Jewish property has been confiscated by the Nazis in occupied Europe, it was estimated here today by economic experts who are studying details of Nazi exploitation of occupied countries.

Jewish properties confiscated in Czechoslovakia alone are valued at $500,000,000, it was pointed out. The most lucrative measure of confiscation of private property applied in most of the conquered countries has been the seizure of Jewish industrial enterprises, including those in which even a relatively small part of the capital was held by Jews, the experts explained.

“By this process of ‘aryanization’ countless valuable businesses passed into German hands, either without compensation or with the payment of a ridiculously small amount after a summary ‘evaluation’ by a German official,” one of the economic experts stated.

News from Germany received here during the last few days indicate that the Nazis have completed plans to transfer to occupied Soviet territory not only the entire Jewish population of Holland, but also of Belgium and other occupied Western territories. The expulsion of all the 150,000 Jews from Holland, which the Nazis expect to carry out in the very near future, is expected to yield additional millions of dollars worth of Jewish property which the Jews will be forced to leave behind when transported to Nazi-held eastern areas.

SLAVE LABOR LEGALIZED BY NAZIFIED DUTCH COURT

While never bothering to establish the legality of the mass-deportation of Jews from conquered countries in Eastern and Central Europe, the Nazi Government, acting more cautiously in occupied Western countries, today obtained a ruling in the Hague Economic Court which legalizes not only the deportation of Jews but also sending any Dutch citizen for forced labor into any part of the Reich. The ruling, issued under the Roman Law, is expected here to have far-reaching consequences not only for Jews but also for the non-Jewish population of Holland, Belgium, Norway and France from where the Nazis are trying to secure slave labor.

The verdict legalizing deportations of citizens from Nazi-conquered countries was issued by the Nazified Dutch jurists at The Hague when five Dutch workers came up for trial on the charge that they disobeyed a summons to report for a physical examination aimed at establishing their fitness for work in Germany. The five pleaded that they are profitably employed in Holland and do not want to go to Germany. The court, however, sentenced them to two months’ imprisonment each on the basis that “Germany is fighting Bolshevism and it is therefore the duty of every Dutchman to work in any part of the Reich in order to replace those fighting on the front.”