World Press Digest

The Yorkshire Telegraph and Star cites the anti-Jewish persecutions in Germany as an example of how the world is going backward. The paper writes:

It was assumed for many years that human progress would be uninterrupted. It was realized that there were periods when the pace was slower than at others, but the general belief was that we were evolving from the worse to the better. Today there are many reasons for doubting this theory, and in a large number of human activities it seems clear that a process of reversion has begun. Take, for example, the German return to mediaeval ideas and practice concerning the Jews, or the still more remarkable reversion to Paganism. Dictatorship in general is a return to ancient and outworn practice. Modern music is a reversion to the tom-tom. Nudism would take us back beyond the dawn of civilization. The loose morals which prevail in some sections of society mean the relaxing of restarints which civilization has imposed. Superstition in many forms is far more general than it was.

REFUGEES’ PLIGHT IN FRANCE

The Jewish Chronicle of London, in commenting on the lot of the refugees, quotes M. Francois Mauriac, of the Academic Francaise, as follows:

“To expel from France a man who has nowhere else to go, and to whom access to his own country is forbidden under pain of death is to sin doubly—against justice and reason. A refugee is expelled from France upon often insignificant pretexts. . . . A simple breach of the law, the lightest sentence, even when it is suspended, automatically entails a decree of expulsion. Then this is what happens: The man does not go. Where could he? To his own country? He would be condemned to death. To some other country? Impossible to secure a visa for a foreign country, without having from the country of his last residence a visa for return. Such a visa being always lacking, authorization is always refused him. So, as he does not leave, he is lodged in gaol. Hardly is he liberated, when he is again brought to justice, and again condemned. Some have experienced this more than fifteen times.

“The wretched people try to cross a frontier by fraud. They are sized and bundled back into France, there to live a hunted existence, which ends fatally in despair and hatred, suicide or crime. And many of these unfortunates were educated men, honored and beloved, who in some cases fought on the French front!”

‘CIVILIZATION SPRINGING OUT OF THE WILDERNESS’

The B’nai B’rith Magazine in its current issue, publishes the following leading editorial on Biro-Bidjan:

Amid the encircling gloom good news comes from Biro-Bidjan which a year ago was made an autonomous Jewish region by the Soviet government.

Biro-Bidjan flourishes by the strength and the zeal of young Jews who have gone there to endure the hardships of pioneers in order to make a good and free life for their children. The Biro-Bidjan adventure is comparable to the emigration of devastated western farmers of our own country to the fertile region of Alaska.

Life marches toward good goals in Biro-Bidjan, what with the area under cultivation having increased twenty per cent in a year, what with numerous houses being built. By the hands of Jews civilization is springing out of the wilderness.

Cultural progress moves space with economic development. Ninety schools function for the 10,000 Jewish children of Biro-Bidjan. After all, the dream of happiness that these Jews dream is all for their children; themselves they have dedicated to hardship and toil.

Ten hospitals, a radio station, a State theater, a cinema provide the social elements of civilization.