Minorities Congress Loses Prestige by Failure to Act on Jewish Question

The Minorities Congress concluded its annual sessions here today, as the press points out, in hopeless confusion. In the opinion of the majority of the delegates at the congress, the assembly, in view of the absence of the Jewish delegation, lost its moral and political significance.

Efforts of the congress presidium to conceal the actual state of affairs by issuing misleading communiques to the press was sharply criticized in the lobbies of the congress today. In fact, the opinion was expressed here that the congress, in failing to take any action on the suppression of minorities in Germany, and particularly on the Jewish persecutions, had lost all justification for its existence.

The Jewish delegation to the congress had declined to participate unless it was assured that there would be free discussion of the German-Jewish situation and the congress would condemn the deprivation of Jewish rights in the Reich. Yesterday, following the declaration by the representatives of the German minorities, which attempted to justify the anti-Jewish measures, the Jewish representatives announced that this declaration made Jewish collaboration impossible. The German minorities, in the concluding debates, attempted to modify the attitude they had taken by explaining they were fighting for a new form of nationality rights, but were prepared to recognize the rights also of those not of the same blood.

The Hungarian, Catalonian, Russian and Lithuanian minorities made a declaration strongly condemning anti-Semitism.