Reports reaching Berlin today disclosed a severe anti-Jewish campaign is in progress throughout Germany in the fields of commerce and industry.
According to the reports, owners of large Jewish enterprises are being arrested or threatened with arrest by local Nazi leaders if they persist in refusing to sell out to “Aryans.”
The drive is being led by the Nazi Labor Front, Officials of that organization present themselves before the owners of Jewish factories and stores and warn them to sell. They explain their actions have been prompted by orders issued by the Nuremberg Congress to all Labor Front members instructing them to renew the campaign against Jewish commercial enterprises by picketing and by disciplining their “Aryan” patrons, Before renewing the drive, however, the officials explain they have been instructed to make every effort to secure liquidation of Jewish ownership “in a quiet manner” by forcing owners to sell to “Aryans.”
A case in point is the arrest in the city of Bielefeld of Sigmund Heymann, director of the Katz and Michel Textile Company. Heymann was arrested by the Gestapo for having allegedly insulted the Labor Front by ordering his factory, in which 100 persons are employed, closed a half-hour earlier on Yom Kippur eve.
According to the Angriff, a Nazi Party organ, Heymann was arrested because he “dared sit in the presence of a Labor Front official.”
Many other Jewish industrialists are in despair over the situation but fear to appeal to the Ministry of Economics which, it is learned, disapproves of the Labor Front’s activities.
At the same time a drive is going forward for elimination of Jews trading in foodstuffs.
In the past fortnight, more than 2,000 Jewish dealers in meats, fats, eggs and similar products have been driven into forced liquidation by new regulations issued by the bureau supervising distribution of food.
More than fifty Jewish grain dealers have been forced out of business in Berlin alone.
In the provinces, Jewish groceries have been excluded by the food distribution authorities from obtaining butter, meat, fats and eggs for resale.
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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.
