The German government went on trial here today before the Upper Silesian Mixed Commission, sitting under the chairmanship of President Felix Calonder of Switzerland, for ousting German Jewish doctors from sick panel funds in Upper Silesia. Upper Silesia is a plebiscire area under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned that on March 23, the Mixed Commission will consider a number of complaints which have been received by that body stating that Germany did not carry out the decision of the League of Nations on the Bernheim petition.
The hearing today before the Mixed Commission was participated in by two representatives of the Polish government and two representatives of the German government.
The case concerns the complaint submitted by the Jewish doctor Sweinbel of Beuthen, Upper Silesia, Dr. Sweinbel declared that he was dismissed from the sick fund panel merely because he was a Jew. This is the first of a large number of similar cases pending. The decision on the first case is awaited anxiously by Upper Silesian Jews, since it will serve as a precedent for the numerous cases still to be heard.
NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS RECEIVED
Ever since the League of Nations decided that the petition submitted by Franz Bernheim, Upper Silesian Jew. was justified and that the German government had no right to dismiss Jews from governmental service or to oust Jewish professionals, numerous complaints have been received by the League that Germany was not living up to her agreement to respect the rights of the Jewish minority in Upper Silesia.
Germany agreed at that time to restore Jewish officials ousted from the government service, to end ousting of Jewish professionals and to recognize the Jews as a minority entitled to all the rights guaranteed minorities under the League of Nations. The German government also agreed to end the boycott of Jewish businesses introduced by Upper Silesian Nazis.
The complaints received by the League, and which were automatically forwarded to the Mixed Commission at Kattowice for action, claim that the anti-Jewish boycott is being prosecuted; that ousted Jewish officials are terrorized by the Nazis, and that wholesale dismissals have been resumed on the pretext that Jewish officials and professionals are members of the proscribed Communist party.
The Manchester Guardian, noted English liberal paper, carried a series of articles from a special correspondent outlining the tragic position of Upper Silesian Jews and openly declared that the Nazi government was not carrying out its agreement with the League, but had merely changed the form of the persecutions and dismissals.
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