A third of all Jewish funerals in Germany these days are due to suicides by adults, Francis S. Harmon, general secretary of the international committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association, told the local Rotary Club.
“The treatment of the Jews in Germany is un-Christian and uncivilized,” said Harmon, who recently returned from a visit to the Eastern continent. “In speaking of this matter, I do not refer only to the sporadic acts of violence one expects during upheaval in any country. In my presence, with other newspapermen present, a very high official smugly assured us that Germany’s goal was the humane extirpation of the Jews.” Hardly a week passes “without new cases of despair on the part of these people without hope,” he added.
Characterizing Hitler as the “greatest showman of all time”, Harmon asserted that the clock of civilization has been turned back because of the dictator’s program of excessive, flamboyant nationalism. He found that Germany has gone back to mediaeval times in many ways. Hitler’s figures of employment could be “taken with a grain of salt”, he thought, because statistices do not allow for women in professional life who have been forced to give up their livelihoods, nor do they take into account the large number of Jews and others who are no longer a factor in the econornic and professional life of the country.
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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.
