Visitors Banned for Jewish Prisoners in Concentration Camps

Regulations governing the treatment of the prisoners in concentration camps throughout Saxony have been published. They provide for the separation of the prisoners into two classes: young prisoners capable of being reformed—in the Nazi sense—and hardened sinners—members of non-Nazi organizations and officials of Marxist organizations.

Although all prisoners are supposed to have been incarcerated on political grounds, numerous Jews now in the concentration camps have been imprisoned on all kinds of false charges in order to separate them from their businesses and thus enable the Nazi economic groups to deal the more easily with Jewish businesses marked down either for Nazi absorption or destruction.

Among the prisoners in the concentration camps in Saxony are some thirty Jewish businessmen from Chemnitz and the neighborhood, who were arrested early last March, as part of an organized Nazi plan to drive Jews from the textile industry. In most cases these men were arrested on accusations made by members of the Christian Retailers and Wholesalers Unions, who are still waging a bitter war against the few Jewish merchants remaining in business.

The regulations for the treatment of prisoners of concentration camps make no specific mention of Jews as such, although they provide that prisoners may receive one visit weekly from a Christian clergyman. They may also be visited once fortnightly by a near relative and may send out one postcard weekly.

Although, since the publication of these regulations, a number of relatives of prisoners have been allowed to visit their relatives, numerous applications by Jewish relatives of prisoners has merely led to a great deal of correspondence, but without any official visiting permit being issued to them.