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“Ghetto Province” in Poland Seen Hitler Aim; Drive on Czech Jews Intensified

October 9, 1939
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Chancellor Adolf Hitler intends to set up a "Jewish ghetto province" on former Polish soil in which all Jews of the Reich, Danzig and the Corridor would be concentrated, informed sources said today in connection with the Fuehrer’s Reich-stag speech proposing "regulation" of the Jewish question and reshuffling of populations.

The proposed Jewish region, it was said here, would emulate the anti-Jewish methods of Tsarist Russia, where Jews were restricted to living in a "pale of settlement" in certain sections of Russia and were forbidden to enter cities in the interior.

Some of Hitler’s advisers, it was stated, have suggested to him the isolation of the Jews in Galicia, but since Galicia is now under Soviet control, this suggestion may be applied to some other section of Nazi-occupied territory. It is clear that with more than 2,000,000 Polish Jews on his hands, Hitler cannot speak of forced Jewish emigration, as he did with the German Jews, who numbered approximately a half million, informed sources declared.

Advices concerning the suggested Jewish region coincided with reports of intensified measures against the Jews in the Bohemia-Moravia protectorate, Slovakia, the old Reich and Danzig.

Reported from Bratislava said an unprecedented campaign of anti-Jewish terrorism, accompanied by murder and provocations, was in progress in the protectorate and Slovakia in reprisal for unceasing sabotage by anti-Nazis and outbreaks conducted by the Czechs and by many Slovaks.

Advices quoting such official Nazi publications as Der Neue Tag of Prague and official orders issued by the authorities in Prague and Bratislava declared that the Nziauthorities in Bohemia-Moravia had launched a special "revenges drive" against the Jews, coupled with propaganda which blamed the Jews for the growing sabotage.

The official Nazi press in Prague forecasts promulgation of "a new Jewish law which will be carried out with great severity and will result in the restoration of complete peace to the population of the protectorate."

"Friendship between the Germans and Czechs within the protectorate will be achieved only when the Jews are eliminated, "Nazi newspapers said, picturing the sabotage as the product of the Jews and "Jewish hirelings."

Admitting that anti-Nazi acts in the protectorate had reached serious proportions, Nazi papers in Prague declared that "everything must be done to make impossible these efforts of the Jews and of their assistants, because it has already reached a point where these Jews and their hirelings are threatening assassinations, are damaging Aryan interests and are declaring as traitors all those who refuse to comply with their requests."

In addition to mass arrests and executions of many persons suspected of anti-Nazi sabotage, the Nazi press revealed that there have been eliminated from any kind of public service in the protectorate all those who "were suspected of being under Jewish influence, namely, those who have Jewish wives or other relatives, as well as those who could be bought by Jews."

In Slovakia, anti-Jewish terrorism has revealed itself in the form of an attack on shochtim (kosher meat slaughterers) in the Bratislava Municipal Slaughterhouse. Slovaks wounded several of the shochtim and also attacked kosher meat dealers. The Bratislava authorities used the disorders as a pretext to prohibit kosher slaughter.

At the same time, the Bratislava police issued an order making it obligatory for all Jewish enterprises in the city to display a special sign indicating that the enterprise was Jewish.

In Germany, according to the organ of the German Labor Front, Jewish names will no longer appear in the forthcoming telephone directories, but will be published as a "yellow supplement" to the directory, marked with the letter "J" for Jew and a six-pointed star.

Although it had been reported that Julius Stretcher, high priest of anti-Semitism in Germany, had been in disgrace, latest information revealed that he addressed in Nuremberg a conference of Nazi propagandists of the Franconia district and told them to emphasize in their propaganda that the Jews brought the war on Germany. He dictated to them the slogan: "International Jewry Forced the War on Germany."

In danzig, although few Jews remain in the German-occupied city, an official order was issued last week stating: "All Jews residing in Danzig must within four days report to the official in charge of furthering Jewish emigration , all their possessions, especially banking and savings accounts, valuable papers, cash, gold fore sign currency, jewelry and everything of value." A penalty of not less than one year’s imprisonment or a fine of300,000 gulden or both is set for giving incorrect information.

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