Czechoslovak official circles here today charged Hungary with departing 65,000 Jews to occupied Poland, including 40,000 Jews from Carpatho-Russia, the part of Czechoslovakia now occupied by Hungary.
The charge was made to counteract the reports being desseminated from Budapest through neutral countries to the effect that Hungary is defying Nazi demands for a stricter anti-Jewish policy. The Czechoslovak Press Service emphasized that the 65,000 Carpatho-Russian Jews were deported from Hungary to Poland only recently. The order 25,000 Jews delivered to the Germans for deportation were Hungarian, it stated.
Officially the mass-deportation of the 65,000 Jews was called “a measure against undesirable foreigner,” the Czechoslovak Press Service explained. This is because it did not include Jews whose ancestors have lived in Hungary since 1852 and pay taxes there since 1872. “The Jews who are still living in Carpatho-Russia under Hungarian occupation are subjugated to ill-treatment and are refused clothing and firewood. It added that all Carpatho-Russian Jews between 17 and 50 years of age are well being conscripted for labor service and sent to the Russian front. Many of the Jews have perished at the front, but others managed to cross to the Russian Lines, the Czechoslovak statement said.
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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.