Passengers on the North-German Lloyd liner Bremen, which docked here today, were almost completely wrapped in a fog of doubt and ignorance of current events in Germany, from which they were arriving.
Travelers from all three classes, first, tourist and third, when interviewed, declared that they could say nothing about conditions in Germany until they got ashore and read the American newspapers.
This extraordinary situation was explained by a passenger on the boat who asked urgently that his name be withheld, because, as he said, “I have to go back to Germany, where I work.” He asserted that German papers were silent on actual news of the internal situation in Germany, while foreign papers are received by subscribers in a mutilated condition, after passing through the censorship.
The passenger also described how moving pictures, even after receiving approval of the censors, are withdrawn, although expensive advertising campaigns have been launched on the strength of the censor’s permission to exhibit. He apologized for not being able to give specific information, saying: “We don’t know what’s going on in Germany. We only feel something—something strange and threatening.”
An Americanized German, returning from a visit to Berlin, who held a copy of the Herald-Tribune as though he had been panting for the moment when the New York papers would be brought on board, corroborated this statement, his wife joining in the complaint. The German-American declared that except for the Nazis, who constitute a separate, self-seeking minority, average Germans are pre-occupied with the task of eking out an existence, and have neither the time nor inclination to harass the Jews.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
