The Week in Review

News from Hitlerland centers around the boycott of all Jews in industry and trade, originally planned by the Nazis for March 23, but which is already in full swing. Reports indicate that the Nazi regime either cannot or will not control Nazi parties and local chieftains throughout Germany. In Wiesbaden minor riots occurred because impoverished Jewish traders attempted to take advantage of the expected Easter trade. At the same time Nazi leaders in Nuremberg issued a declaration for a complete boycott of Jews in every field of professional business and social life, which all Nazi party members were asked to sign. The very next day, however, the Nazi Bavarian Minister of Economics, Dr. Esser, speaking in Nuremberg, the very center of the anti-Jewish boycott movement and the home of the notorious Julius Streicher, issued a sharp warning against the boycott, and Nazi party officials completely disavowed the declaration which the Nazi party members were asked to subscribe to.

The widely heralded spring campaign for employment opened with the usual fanfare of Nazi trumpets and the usual nation-wide radio broadcasts by Hitler and Goebbels. The Deutsche Zeitung, leading Nazi paper, in a bitter article attacking the Jews, called for a campaign for work on an “Aryan basis” and declared that Germans were unable to compete with the “destructive mentality of the Jew” in trade and industry.

The Berlin Jewish community issued an appeal to German Jews asking them to back the spring employment campaign and made a special appeal to Jewish employers to hire Jewish unemployed and thus lighten the burden of the Jewish community.

AUSTRIA

From official Austrian sources assurances were given that the new constitution for the authoritarian, corporative state to be promulgated soon will contain clauses guaranteeing freedom of conscience and belief. The gloom hanging over the Jews of Austria was somewhat lightened by this announcement, but fear is still felt over a project announced by the Heimwehr, the real rulers of Austria, which would deprive a large number of naturalized Jews of full citizen rights and equality. Significance is lent to the Heimwehr plan because the vigilant Austrian censor passed it and because no official denial of the plan has been forthcoming from official sources.

GREAT BRITAIN

English Jewry launched its second campaign for relief for German Jewish refugees. The report issued by the British Central Relief Fund showed that over Pound200,000 was collected in the last campaign, more than half of which was spent in Palestine. The report praised Palestine as the place where the shattered lives of German Jewish refugees were most successfully reconstructed…Neville Laski, Anglo-Jewish leader, declared in a speech before the Board of Deputies of British Jews that the outside world could not accept Germany’s assurances regarding treatment of the Jews as long as the Nazi regime tolerated perpetual incitement against the Jewish population.

PALESTINE

The government of Palestine granted 1,350 workers immigration certificates to the Jewish Agency for Palestine against an undetermined immigration schedule… Dr. Chaim Weizmann, noted Zionist leader, now in Palestine in connection with his work for the settlement of German Jewish refugees there, called for peace in Palestine and rebuked the various factions for their bitterness toward each other… Speedy removal of the ban on the “Brown Book of the Hitler Terror” was announced. Palestine authorities, it seemed, objected to the cover of the book, which portrayed Goebbels as an ape with bloody hands. A curious situation existed in the Holy Land, for while the “Brown Book” was banned, Hitler’s autobiography was freely sold.

THE REST OF EUROPE

Codreanu, leader of the Iron Guard, and the actual assassins of Premier Duca were formally charged with the crime. Codreanu emerged from hiding and surrendered himself to the authorities…Ukrainian terrorists continue their attacks on the Jews of Galicia. Here the Jews were attacked because they are farmers. The Ukrainians think the Jews should stick to trade… Six Endek students were arrested and charged with having brutally attacked Professor Handelsmann aged Jewish scholar in Poland. The Polish government announced that the attack will be regarded as an attack on a state official and severely punished…Heiz Liepmann, German Jewish writer who was sentenced by a Dutch court to serve one month in jail for having allegedly libeled President von Hindenburg of Germany, was freed and immediately deported to Belgium, setting at rest rumors that he might be deported to Germany.

THE UNITED STATES

Felix M. Warburg, philanthropist and financier, accepted the national championship of the $3,000,000 united drive for the relief of German Jews…The sixtieth birthday of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise was widely celebrated in New York City and other Jewish centers in the United States. A purse of $40,000 was presented to Dr. Wise, which he announced would be used to further the work of the Jewish institutions he is connected with….A committee of notable American women headed by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt petitioned President Roosevelt to liberalize restrictions against the admission of German refugees…The House of Representatives voted to carry out a sweeping investigation of Nazi propaganda activities in the United States as proposed by Congressman Samuel Dickstein. An appropriation of $25,000 for the committee was also voted. Only thirty-one Congressmen voted against the measure.