Renewed Panic Among Jews in Hungary; Anti-jewish Measures Intensified

Panic reigns once again among the Jews of Hungary as a result of renewed mass-deportations and increased anti-Jewish measures, which had been cased for a few weeks as results of protests voiced by the United States and England, the Swiss press says today.

The Budapest correspondent of the Swiss Telegraphic Agency reports that there is ground to fear “that Hungary will again take up the Jewish problem energetically and will resume anti-Jewish persecutions.” The correspondent says that Hungarian extremists “supported by the Gestapo and Nazi elite guards” are pressing the Hungarian government to rescind recent relaxations of the anti-Jewish measures and are especially determined to make Hungary “judenrien” by deporting all Jews to German extermination camps.

Appeasing the extremists, the new Minister of the Interior, Miklos Bonczos, today issued an order shortening by one hour the period during which the Jews of Budapest are permitted to appear in the streets. Beginning today Budapest Jews will be permitted to leave their homes only between noon and 5 p.m.

The names of the 320 Hungarian Jews who were permitted recently to leave Hungary for Switzerland and who are now in Basle was made public here today. They include Dr. Adolph Deutsch, vice-president of the Budapest Orthodox Community, a rabbi of Cluj, the capital of Transylvania, and a number of industrialists, businessmen and intellectuals. The group came to Switzerland from a labor camp in Bergenbelsen. When they were moved from Bergenbelsen, they were under the impression that they were being deported to an extermination camp in Poland. They were greatly surprised and relieved when they reached the Swiss frontier at Basle where they were welcomed to Switzerland.