tions” of the foreign press with regard to the situation in Germany, and has sought to turn the wrath of the storm troopers from the government toward the Jews. A new boycott drive, labelling all who deal with Jews as “traitors” to Germany, has gotten off to a flying start in Berlin and provincial centers.
Today the Deutsche Wochenschau, influential Nazi publication, declaring that Germany has a shortage of raw materials and that food and clothing ration cards have already been printed, charged that this is all the fault of the Jews and demanded that Minister of Economics Kurt Schmitt use the great powers conferred upon him to regulate supplies and trade generally in an investigation of the activities of the Jews.
PROVINCIAL STATUS DOUBTFUL
Great concern has been aroused here by reports from Prague of serious activities against the Jews in Silesia. Strict censorship and the absence of authoritative information from the greater part of the German provinces still prevails and thus the situation of the Jews there is by no means well known.
Berlin witnessed one assault on the Jews by storm troop bands on the night of July 2, despite the careful patrolling by the military, the S.S. (elite guard) and the regular police. If this could have happened in Berlin, it is pointed out, far worse could have happened in the provinces, where less protection could have been afforded.
(The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported Saturday from Prague that information had been received there that several Jews had been killed and many others arrested and cruelly beaten when Hitler’s black-shirted elite guard went to Hirschberg, in Upper Silesia, to quell or dissolve storm troop rioters there.)
With the arrival in Hirschberg of the S. S. men, a veritable reign of terror was carried out with the Jews of the town as victims. Twenty-five of the most prominent Jewish citizens of the community were taken to Nazi barracks, where they were horribly beaten.
Four of them, an attorney Foerster, a merchant named Charry and Dr. and Frau Zweig, were shot and killed while they were being transported to the nearby town of Goerlitz.
According to the S. S. officials, the four were shot “while attempting to escape.” Since the bullet wounds, according to reliable reports reaching Prague, were found in the faces and temples of the victims, this statement was held to be untrue.
A grave scarcity of food, for which the Deutsche Wochenschau attempted to blame the Jews, is already seriously disturbing the population of the larger communities. There is a grave shortage of potatoes and rice and the supply grows shorter daily.
Even in Berlin, the capital, long queues are assembled outside the food shops. The scenes are reminiscent of war-time days when the Allied blockade of Germany was at its most effective point.
Berlin, deprived of accurate information as to what is going on, hummed with rumors and “interpretations” today and read into the announcement of Chancellor Hitler’s week-end vacation in Bavaria a forecast of his permanent retirement.
The city was also agitated by reports that storm troopers were planning to avenge the deaths of their leaders and with speculations on the fate of the storm troops.
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.
