Reich Jewish Leaders Rush Plans for New Schools

Working under scarcity of funds, difficulty in finding sites and a dearth of qualified teachers, Jewish leaders are rushing to completion plans to provide schools for 25,000 Jewish children who will be barred from the Reich school system after Easter by Government decree.

It is estimated that about $400,000 will be required to begin operation of the new school system, and Jewish communities have indicated they are too impoverished and burdened with other requirements to make up the quota.

To cope with a shortage of teachers, the Berlin Jewish Community has opened a special five-month training course in which teachers otherwise qualified learn Hebrew and Jewish subjects. Although there are thousands of unemployed Jewish intellectuals, few of them have the necessary Jewish background.

Less than 100 persons have been found so far to fill the minimum requirement of 400 teachers. While there is an excess of Jewish teachers in neighboring countries, they cannot be brought here because German law requires that teachers in the Reich hold German passports.

The problem of finding school sites presents itself because of the prohibition on Jewish acquisition or leasing of State-or municipally-owned buildings. Jewish realty owners are expected to donate buildings for use as schools. Many Jewish community buildings will be converted into schools.

It is expected that the Government will insist on appointment of a Nazi commissar for the “ghetto schools,” but no definite action to that end has been taken yet.

About 5,000 Jewish children have voluntarily left the German schools in the past two years rather than undergo humiliation, segregation and tirades against the Jews. These children are attending schools organized by Jewish communities, where they are taught Hebrew and given courses to fit them for emigration.