150 Jews Leaving Czecho-slovakia Daily; Anti-semitic Book to Be Published

Spurred by rising anti-Semitic pressure, approximately 150 Jews are emigrating daily from Czecho-Slovakia, a survey established today. Jews who remain are facing the prospect of being left without leadership, since the emigrants include a number of Jewish leaders. Parliament deputies Dr. Angelo Goldstein and Dr. Chaim Kugel have already departed for Palestine.

While freely permitting the sale of Der Stuermer, Julius Streicher’s violently anti-Semitic weekly, the Czech authorities are drastically censoring anti-German reports in the two existing Jewish publications. Yesterday’s editions of one of the Jewish papers were confiscated and the editor and publisher, Oscar Rabinowicz, called to the police. Asked whether he intended to “liquidate” his weekly, Mr. Rabinowicz promised to transfer it to London, whence he is emigrating within two months.

Influential non-Jewish circles, meanwhile, are making efforts for Government intervention against publication by a leading Praha publishing house of a 320-page book, “Hilsner and Thomas G. Masaryk,” which revives the famous Leopold Hilsner ritual murder case at the turn of the century. The author, M. Janrys, is believed to be financed by German sources. The book, which is scheduled for release at the end of this month, contains numerous anti-Jewish caricatures taken from Der Stuermer. All but two of its chapters have been passed by the Czech censors.

In his interview with this correspondent yesterday, Dr. Jiri Havelka, Chief of the Cabinet Chancellery, emphasized that the Jews of Czecho-Slovakia were not subjected to interference in trade and in public places. He admitted, however, that the situation was different in Slovakia, where anti-Jewish elements were more active than they were in Praha.

Dr. Havelka paid tribute to the 40,000 Jews who in the 1910 census had declared them-selves Czech, promising that they would be accorded better treatment than those who had claimed German nationality at that time. (In yesterday’s JTA NEWS it was incorrectly stated that better treatment would be accorded 40,000 Jews who declared themselves of German nationality.) Asked why he was using the 1910 census to distinguish between the two groups of Jews, Dr. Havelka pointed out that the census of that year had formed the basis of the Munich agreement under which Czecho-Slovakia was dismembered. He said:

“We lost more territory to Germany under that agreement because too many Jews that year declared themselves of German nationality. On the other hand, we feel especially grateful to those Jews who at that time did not hesitate to declare themselves Jews of Czech nationality. It was a heroic act, during the 1910 regime, to declare oneself Czech when one really was a Jew. These Jews we therefore consider real Czechs and there will be no discrimination between them and Czech ‘Aryans.’ Whatever the treatment of Jews who in 1910 declared themselves of German nationality, we shall not reduce them to third class citizens nor will we introduce the racial principle in our country.”