The new Government-created single organization of Reich Jews, the Reichsvereinigung, was seen in a Berlin dispatch to the New York Times today as the instrument through which their final ruin may be encompassed.
“The new organization,” wrote correspondent Percy Knauth, “is in the position of a snake devouring itself by the tail while some one else is biting chunks out of its body. The situation of bitter irony is that the Jewish organization must now, in addition to the heavy taxes levied by the Reich, further exact contributions of its own that re likely to take the last penny from those who still have funds in order to keep its impoverished thousands alive and with a roof over their heads. And what is more, the last penny will not be enough to pay the tremendous burden of social welfare with which the organization has been saddled.”
“The total amount required to support indigent Orthodox Jews alone is estimated at 30,000,000 marks yearly. This is 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 marks more than the Jews hitherto have been paying — and they have been paying as much as they were able. The Reich’s municipalities helped out only when necessary, and now, according to the letter of the new decree, they are not to help at all.
“There are at present 225,000 Orthodox Jews still in the Reich. In order to meet the bill for social welfare for the Orthodox Jews alone every many, women and child of this number would have to pay 130 marks yearly. Less than one-quarter of them, however, have any funds whatever, and they are already paying the limit in State taxes and dues to the Jewish Organization.
“The organization’s leaders do not know how they are going to foot this bill. Unless thousands of Jews are literally to starve in the streets, municipalities will have to help out as heretofore. The organization may be able to realize something on the blocked accounts of Jews who have already left Germany, provided the Government permits them to liquidate these funds. But these, in the words of one of their leaders, would ‘only be a drop in the bucket.'”
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.
