An order to confiscate all Jewish mobile property in Slovakia which for some reason escaped previous confiscation orders was issued this week by the Central Economic Office in Bratislava, according to a report reaching here today.
The report says that the confiscated articles will be auctioned off at public sales and the proceeds will be used “for financing the solution of the Jewish problem in Slovakia.”
The registration of all Jews residing in Slovakia, including foreign citizens, was completed throughout the country on March 10th, the report informs. All registered Jews received a special certificate on which every movement of the holder must be entered by the local authorities from March 20th on. Many of the Jews in the larger cities have been “evacuated” by the authorities during the last few weeks into the ten “ghetto cities” near the Slovak-Polish frontier where the Slovak government intends to concentrate all the 70,000 Jews in the country.
Despite the fact that many prominent Slovaks have been arrested in connection with the growing anti-Nazi whispering campaign, the Slovak press, in a renewed anti-Jewish drive, accuses the Jews of being responsible for the large-scale whispering propaganda now being conducted all over the country. The Nazi-controlled Slovak newspapers demand that the government retaliate by introducing even more drastic legislation against the Jews.
10,000 CZECH JEWS IMPRISONED; CZECHS CONTINUE TO DEFY NAZI ANTI-SEMITISM
In Bohemia and Moravia, the report states, the Nazis continue to make every possible effort to eradicate the pro-Jewish feelings among the Czech population. However, all Nazi efforts in this direction produce no results. The Narodni Political, a Prague pro-Nazi paper, complains in an article that the Czechs, being forbidden to openly greet Jewish acquaintances, have adopted the method of greeting their Jewish friends in the street by a twinkle in their eyes. “These Czech philo-Semites had better take care of their necks,” the paper threatens.
More than 10,000 Czech Jews are already interned in the prisons in the fortress town of Theresin, which the Gestapo in the Czech Protectorate has designated as the place to which all Jews of Bohemia and Moravia will be transferred, according to information reaching Jewish circles in Switzerland. Each day brings new victims who are taken from their homes at night by Gestapo agents and transferred to the Theresin jails, the report states.
“As a result of the continued night raids,” the report informs, “Jews in Prague and in other Czech cities live in constant fear that they may be dragged out of their beds at any moment to be sent to the Theresin fortress. None of the Jews jailed in the prison of Theresin are permitted to communicate with the outside world, thus practically nothing is known of the conditions under which they are being held. It is known, however, that the first thing which the Gestapo does when the victims reach the fortress town, is to take away their Czech citizenship papers and declare them to be ‘stateless’ prisoners.”
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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.
