Since the establishment of a special Jewish agency in Slovakia on Sept. 26 all Jewish organizations except local Kultusgemeinden have been abolished, it was learned here today in an interview with a reliable traveler returning from Bratislava.
Among the organizations which have been liquidated is the Jewish orphans home at Bratislava, the traveler said. Last week the authorities ejected the Jewish orphans, who must now be cared for privately. The building was converted into a home for Gentile apprentices. For the time being the Jewish community is receiving a nominal sum as rental for the premises, the informant said.
There also has been talk of expropriating the Jewish soup kitchen at Bratislava but thus far it has been permitted to continue operations, serving hundreds of needy daily The traveler recalled that the soup kitchen was still required to furnish room and board for 100 woman domestics who lost their jobs last month when the Government regulation for bidding Jewish households to employ maids under 40 went into effect.
Describing the new Jewish agency my informant said that everyone legally defined as a Jew was automatically a member of the new organization, which is headed by Dr. Hein rich Schwartz and a committee of ten. As in Germany Jews are defined as all persons with more than one Jewish grandparent and all persons married to Jews. All dissolved Jewish organizations have been transferred to the new central agency.
Law No. 234 under which the organization was established, he said, defines as Jewish “all organizations more than half of whose members are Jews” or organizations not necessarily Jewish but “which concern themselves with Jewish problems.” Presumably, if the Red Cross set up local offices at Bratislava for refugee relief it, too, would be considered Jewish.
Among the new decrees affecting the Jews which appear every day in the official government journal, the informant said that the most far-reaching law was number 243 limiting the disposal of Jewish property. This law prohibits the sale of all items of personal property worth more than 500 crowns without a special permit from the finance minister. If the same of an article worth more than 500 crowns is permitted, a Jew is required to pay the Government 20 per cent of the sale price, it was said. All such payments are supposed to be placed in a special Jewish emigration fund based on the German model.
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.
