The London Daily Herald, commenting editorially on the reception given to the German war veterans in England, says:
If they do sincerely wish for the friendship and the goodwill of British ex-Service men and of the British nation, then they have indeed to rid our minds of certain memories. But these are not the memories of the war years. They are recent.
How can there be a genuine fraternization while the British guests have in mind the fact that other German war veterans, no less gallant than their hosts, are held, and some tortured, in concentration camps?
They may say no word, being bound by the laws of politeness. Or, if the subject is mentioned, they may politely accept the explanations and assurances given to them. But, though they may accept, they cannot believe: for the facts are too notorious.
The irony of the situation is that many of these men, be they Socialists or Communists or Jews, have suffered imprisonment or worse precisely on account of their devotion to those ideas of peace and international understanding of which Herr Hitler is now so eloquent an advocate.
If he desires the friendship of Britain for Germany, the opening of his political jails and concentration camps will do more to achieve his end than a hundred visits.
THE MENDELSSOHNS RESISTED NAZIS
The London Daily Telegraph, in an editorial entitled “Immune,” comments as follows on the death of Franz von Mendelssohn in Germany:
Herr Franz von Mendelssohn belonged to a family, originally Jewish, who were so important financially and had been so long “German” that they have been able to resist all “Aryan” attempts at persecution on a big scale. For them, as for other big Jewish banking houses—that of the five brothers Wassermann and of Arnholds—the advent of the Nazis to power meant only occasional unpleasantness.
The Mendelssohn concern was founded by the Moses Mendelssohn who was the great friend of Frederick the Great. For practically the whole of the 19th century it provided the capital for the industrial development of Russia.
Although at the beginning of the 20th century French capital for political reasons was ousting them, the Mendelssohns had so much money sunk in Russia at the outbreak of war that it looked as if the must go bankrupt.
But then, and again during the inflation, the financial genius of a small Polish Jew, who was the head of their Amsterdam house, saved them.
POLISH JEWS HERE MAP PLANS FOR WORLD PARLEY
Tentative plans for an international conference of federations of Polish Jews at London in the middle of September to devise ways for relief of the Jews in Poland were discussed last night at a meeting of the newly elected administrative committee of the Federation of Polish Jews in America at its headquarters, 225 West Thirty-fourth Street.
A committee was appointed to look into the advantages and disadvantages of a special campaign in America in behalf of the Polish Jews.
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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.
