Nazi-inspired Anti-jewish Laws Loom in Czechoslovakia

Czecho-Slovakian newspapers today published a series of proposals for far-reaching anti-Semitic legislation on the Nazi model which were put forth under Germany’s influence. The laws to “solve the Jewish problem” had not been introduced earlier because Great Britain had intervened in the Jews’ behalf in connection with the recent loan to Prague, the newspapers said.

The demands were made as the Czecho-Slovakian Jewish Party, already dissolved in Slovakia and Carpatho-Russia, faced prohibition in Bohemia and Moravia as well. A number of newspapers had urged dissolution of the party as “endangering public interests.”

The proposed anti-Jewish measures follow: (1) a Jewish census to ascertain the proportion of Jews in the population; (2) elimination of Jews from the fields of press, films, radio, hospitals and social insurance; (3) a proportionate restriction on Jews in the liberal professions and economic life; (4) denationalization of Jews who acquired citizenship after 1920; (5) definition of the Jews according to the German Nuremberg laws.

Fearing imminent anti-Jewish legislation, the Supreme Council of Jewish Communities today submitted a 22-page memorandum to the Government and the speakers of both houses of Parliament describing the Jewish situation and appealing for the maintaining of tolerance.

Meanwhile, the Jewish question was included in the agenda of the first session of the Slovakian Diet on Jan. 8. The Slovakian press reports that the Government is studying the Jewish problem, a solution of which has been promised by Premier Rudolf Beran.

In Moravska-Ostrava, Adolf Gruenspan, 40 years old, a relative of Herschel Grynszpan has been arrested, it was revealed today. The reason for the arrest was not known.