The Hungarian Government is now at work drafting a third anti-Jewish law aimed at tightening the provisions of present anti-Semitic legislation.
Observers believe the new measures will be designed to achieve the following three objectives: (1) liquidation of all Jewish land owners, (2) expropriation of all large capitalist interests and (3) abolition of exemptions in the present law for converted Jews, “half-Jews” and Gentiles married to persons of Jewish origin.
Critics of the present law complain that exemptions in this act permit expropriation of only 125,000 acres of Jewish-owned agricultural land. The new law is expected to enable the expropriation of at least 500,000 acres.
Anti-capitalist provisions of the new law are expected to answer such critics as ex-Premier Bela Imredi, who frequently complained that while the present law sufficiently penalized small Jewish merchants and artisans, it failed to penalize Jewish capitalists, who found a way to elude the provisions. Extension of the penalties will close the gap in the law and make it impossible in the future for wealthy Jews and their relatives to escape the onus attached to their race.
Another feature of the law will be a clause defining as Jews all persons with more than one Jewish grandparent.
Meanwhile, the present law, despite the criticism of its “mildness,” is a considerable trouble to employers, who are not observing the embargo on Jewish employees. The press reports that a number of proceedings have been instituted against proprietors of enterprises in the industrial suburbs of Ujpest, Rakos, Szent and Istvan for failure either to register Jewish employees or to discharge those above the legal limit.
According to Bucharest reports to newspapers here, Premier Ion Gigurtu of Rumania has ordered that present Hungarian anti-Jewish laws be translated into Rumanian as a guide for coming anti-Semitic legislation in Rumania. Commenting on this, the Arrow-Cross organ, Magyarsag, advises a study also of the impending anti-Jewish law in Hungary to avoid “oversights” in the present legislation.
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.
