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Report White Russian Reign of Terror Against Harbin Jews

January 19, 1937
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A White Russian reign of terror in Harbin in which synagogues have been repeatedly raided and a Jewish visitor forced to declare under duress he was a Communist was described by refugees from the Manchukuoan city arriving here.

The visitor, it was stated, was arrested on arriving in Harbin and after being forced through torture to assert he was “spy and a Communist” was summarily deported. Others have been arrested on slight pretext, according to the refugees’ accounts.

Israel’s Messenger, local weekly, quoted reports that a synagogue had been raided and the Holy Scrolls of the Law “irroverentially handled” in the hope of finding Communistic literature. Other reports of raids on homes were cited.

White Russians, reputedly in control of Harbin, are even holding people in concentration camps in what the Messenger calls “a carbon copy of Nazi Germany.” The weekly says that Japan is giving the Russians their way to win their aid in the event of a war with Soviet Russia.

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