Non-jews in Slovakia Threatened with Prison for Aiding Jews

Non-Jews in Slovakia were warned today that they will be imprisoned for aiding Jews to evade registering as ordered by the Slovakian Minister of Interior. So far only 4,900 Jews in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, have registered, the warning announced over the Bratislava radio station stated.

The Calvinist priest M. Sedivy of the Slovakian town of Nitra has been taken into “protective custody” on the charge that he baptised 717 Slovakian Jews without any religious preparation, merely to save them from being among the 58,000 Jews already deported from the country. The Gardista, organ of the anti-Semitic Hlinka Guard, charges that the Slovakian government commissioner at Nitra served as godfather at the baptismal ceremony of more than thirty Jews in order to help them evade the anti-Jewish regulations.

The Nazi newspaper Grenzbote published in Slovakia urges that “those who protect the Jews should be treated as Jews.” The paper charges that certain groups in Slovakia are helping the Jews to evade deportation and the anti-Jewish laws “out of more political interest.” The Nazi organ adds that “prison will not harm the Aryan protectors.”

YIELD FROM TAX ON JEWISH PROPERTY DISAPPOINTS GOVERNMENT

The extraordinary property tax imposed upon Slovakian Jews has produced only one-tenth of the expected yield, according to reports reaching here. The Bratislava authorities estimated that they would secure 500,000,000 crowns through the levy, but instead raised only 50,000,000.

As a result the Slovak government decreed the appointment of state administrators for all non-industrial Jewish-owned property in the country and has announced that funds secured from such property will be placed in blocked accounts. Heretofore only about forty percent of this type of property was under the control of official administrators.