The Saar Basin, which until 1918 was a part of the German Reich, has been under the management of a League of Nations Commissioner since 1919, in accordance with the provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty. This rule is to continue until 1935. After that, the League of Nations will set a date on which the residents of the Saar territory will be asked to vote as to whether they choose to be under German or under French rule. For the present the constitution and laws which obtained in Germany before the National Socialists came into power are valid in the Saar. Accordingly, the Jews in the Saar territory have all the rights of citizens and there is no legal distinction among the inhabitants.
About 5,000 Jews live in the Saar region. Most of them are subjects of the German State. Most of the rest of them are immigrant East European Jews. Saarbruecken is the largest community. The occupations of the Jews in the Saar is similar to that of the Jews in the neighboring regions of Pfalz, Baden and Luxemburg. Their economic condition has become decidedly worse as a result of the economic crisis of the past few years. Nevertheless the Saar has a toll union with France and the unit of currency is the French franc. For this reason the economic situation in the Saar region is considerably better than the general economic state as it was before the beginning of the Nazi regime.
NAZI TENDENCIES
Recently, however, the attitude towards the Jewish population of the Saar has been assuming Nazi tendencies. The National Socialist organization is very strong and although their activity is somewhat checked in view of the League of Nations regime, their acts of terror nevertheless have a strong effect upon the population and find expression in a passionate boycott of the Jews, among whom no distinction is made as to whether they are old inhabitants, foreigners or refugees from Hitlerland. The Jewish business men already suffer a great deal as a result of this boycott, and although storm troopers are not permitted to picket Jewish shops, the slogans “Don’t buy of Jews!” “Avoid Jewish businesses!” are brought to the people in leaflets and handbills.
The government undoubtedly has every intention of maintaining law and order and opposing the anti-Semitic propaganda, but the subordinate officials, in particular, the judges, show little intention of carrying out the wishes of the government. The sentiment of the people has been perverted by inciting hate propaganda and the Jews in the Saar are getting a taste of what conditions would be like if the Saar were to revert to Germany. Thus Jewish shops in Saarbruecken found themselves forced to hoist the flag of the New Germany during a visit of the German. Turn members this summer, when the whole city was a sea of National Socialist flags.
THE DECISIVE YEAR
The year 1935 will be decisive for the Saar region. Now that Germany has left the League of Nations, it is difficult to say just when the expected plebiscite will take place. But the Jews of the Saarland are quite justified in saying that they should be prepared for every eventuality and should take everything into consideration. Under the present circumstances, the worst possibility, so far as the Jews are concerned, would be the return of the Saar to Germany. What would happen then? If the Hitler regime is still in power at that time, it is to be expected that it will regard it as its bounden duty to co-ordinate the legal status of the Jews in the Saar region with that of the rest of the Jews in Germany. Unfortunately two probable in the plebiscite that they wish to be returned to Germany.
In the second place, the National Socialist government in Germany will by the end of 1935 not have been replaced by any other form. As things stand in contemporary world politics there is little indication that France, taking into account the character of the Saar population, would put great value on putting obstacles in the way of the reversion of the Saar to Germany.
A WAY OUT SOUGHT
Many Jews of the region are now asking themselves how best to escape the approaching danger or how best to paralyze its insidious workings. A prerequisite for any measure which may be adopted is the creation of an organization which will embrace all the Jews in the Saar region, that is, a community league; or the transfer of the power to appear as attorney in the name of the Saarland Jews to the largest community of the land, to that of Saarbruecken. For although individual Jews who have the power to do so will prefer not to wait for the blessing of a Nazi regime but to emigrate, most of them, for most varied reasons, principally economic, will see themselves forced to keep their dwelling-places in the Saar territory. Assuming that the Saar region will revert to Germany, a situation similar to that which obtained in a part of Upper Silesia bordering Poland during the plebiscite in 1922, will arise.
At that time a convention was signed by the two participating powers, Germany and Poland, providing for a transitional period of fifteen years, and containing, along with the settlement of economic matters, decisions on the legal status of the inhabitants of Upper Silesia. The commission which is at present governing the Saar territory anticipated just such a convention by submitting to the League of Nations, as the present sovereign of the territory, proposals which would insure the duly acquired rights of the Saar officialdom in the event of the territory’s reversion to Germany.
THE FRENCH MINORITY
Within the almost completely German population of the Saar territory, several thousand Frenchmen live as a national minority. One must recall that in Esthonia the principle of the protection of national minorities obtains even in those cases where the total of individuals involved is only a few thousand. Why should not France see to it that those members of the French nation who remain in the Saar territory under a German rule be protected in the matter of their national minority rights?
It is quite conceivable that such an arrangement will be made when the Saar territory goes over to Germany. And if it is possible to carry out this principle at all after the plebiscite in the Saar region, it is also absolutely possible for the Jewish minority, regardless of whether it regards the National Socialist theory as national, religious or racial, to stipulate minority protection.
The importance of this can be seen from the treatment of the Bernheim petition before the League of Nations in May of last years. In the end the National Socialist Germany saw itself forced, since an international agreement was involved, to admit, verbally at any rate, that the Jews in Upper Silesia had been wronged and to promise a Restitutio in integrum. The fact that Germany no longer belongs to the League of Nations has no particular significance in this case. For the Saar statute and the further regulation of the legal status in the Saar region will be tied up with the League in accordance with the valid treaties. And, indeed, this occurred at a time when Germany was not yet a mem- was a member of the League of Nations between 1919 and 1935 for any length of time.
It should not be assumed that treaty and legal obligations create a real protective wall against actual deprivation of civic rights. No convention imposed upon Germany will have the power to remove the poison from the character of the relations between Jews and non-Jews in the Saar region. Assuming even the best intentions on the part of the authorities, there are no guarantees of civil rights which can be depended upon to protect a part of the population against which the antipathy of the majority of the people is directed. And even granted that it might be possible to create adequate civic guarantees for the Jews of the Saar, it is almost certain that it is not possible to change the character of the authorities and of the population. Therefore the possibility that the Jews of the Saar territory will share the same fate and tribulations as the rest of the Jews under German rule, even though their civic rights should be more formally protected than those of their brother-nationals in the Third Reich must be reckoned with.
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.
