Under the Yiddish caption “Shwer tsu sein a Yid” (It’s hard to be a Jew), the newspaper L’Oeuvre reported today that 16 Nazi spies who entered the Netherlands in the guise of Jewish refugees–even taking the precaution of being circumcised-were unmasked when it was determined through a rabbi that they were not circumcised according to the Jewish ritual.
According to the report, the Gestapo selected 16 men who looked as Jewish as possible, had them attend synagogue services for several weeks to acquaint themselves with Jewish ceremonials, had them circumcised, furnished them with passports stamped with “J” (Jew) and sent them into Holland.
The Netherlands anti-espionage service, suspecting that they were spies, arrested the men. After examining them, the authorities called a rabbi and, without informing him about the details of the case, asked him to ascertain whether the men were circumcised in the Jewish manner. He reported that they were not. L’Oeuvre commented: “To be a Jew one must be born a Jew.”
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.
