An agreement between the Anglo-Palestine Bank and the Reich’s Minister of Economics, Dr. Kurt Schmitt, governing the possibilities of the export of possessions of German Jews who wish to migrate to Palestine, was officially announced here today by the Palestine Bureau of the German Zionist Federation in a statement to the press. The notice was issued following publication in this morning’s newspapers of a report of an agreement between the Nazi Government and a trustee corporation, newly-formed, to aid the emigration of Jews from Germany to Palestine.
The agreement was reached August 10 and permits the placing of amounts approved by the currency department to the credit of a special account in the Anglo-Palestine Bank. Immigrants to Palestine will be able to buy in Germany any type of goods for export to Palestine paying through this special account. (The newspaper reports this morning apparently held this purchasing power limited to machinery.)
The entire amount of the transactions, according to the announcement, cannot exceed three million marks. A special corporation will be organized to carry them out.
Further agreement regarding other amounts in excess of the three million marks were not reached, the communique states in denial of this morning’s reports to that effect.
(According to information received by the Prague correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the German Government has agreed to extend the agreement to cover additional amounts following the expenditure of the first three million.) Dr. Arthur Ruppin, agricultural and colonization expert of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is to disclose the terms of the agreement to the Eighteenth World Zionist Congress now in session in Prague. According to Prague reports he will announce that in addition to the three million mark sum, each German Jewish emigrant will be permitted to take the thousand pounds in capital necessary for admission to Palestine in the capitalist classification.)
Inability to take money out of Germany has been one of the main reasons that has prevented numbers of German Jews from emigrating. According to the regulations in force, no one may take more than two hundred marks out of Germany. Severe penalties have been imposed upon individuals alleged to have sent money out of Germany illegally. And the Nazi government has offered rewards to informers who enable the government to prosecute those who have violated this law. This has led to the confiscation of the entire property of a number of Jews on the ground that they have sent money out of Germany illegally.
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.
