The World Jewish Congress today addressed a message to President Enrique Hertzog of Bolivia pointing out that the decree which he had signed authorizing the special investigation of the financial assets of all Semitic immigrants to Bolivia since 1937, “is the first instance of anti-Jewish legal discrimination after the collapse of the Axis powers and the first ever to be enacted in the Western Hemisphere.”
Stressing the belief that President Hertzog probably did not realise the Nazi Nuremberg Law connotations of the act, Dr. Robert Marcus, political director of the Congress, said: “Unless Bolivia means to abrogate its obligations as a member of the United Nations and a signatory to the U.N. Charter prohibiting discrimination and promoting human rights, and to repudiate its democratic traditions, I am certain this decree will be amended or abrogated.”
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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.