Racial extremism in Germany today went a step further when a foreign power was approached with a request for help in determining the racial origin of a German subject. The authorities of a secondary school in a provincial town in Germany wrote to the Polish Consulate and asked them to communicate with the proper authorities in Poland in order to obtain proof of the Aryan origin of a Mrs. Jenschke, who was employed by them as a domestic servant, as her Aryanism was a condition of her further employment.
In the course of the letter full-particulars are given of this woman’s parents, who lived in Lodz. But in order to confirm her claim to be of pure Aryan origin, a copy of her birth certificate and her parents’ marriage certificate are required and the Consulate is requested to help the school authorities in obtaining these. The letter goes on to say that both the woman and her parents were members of the Lutheran Church.
The Polish press, in commenting on this matter, ridicules the German authorities and refers to the “Prussian thoroughness in seeing to it that ‘non-Aryans’ shall not merely be excluded from the teaching, the legal and the medical professions but shall not even be allowed to sweep stairs or wash floors.” It is considered a piece of unbridled impertinence, however, to expect foreign Governments to help them in their campaign for the “purification of the German race.”
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.
