Germany will have to guarantee protection to the Jews of the Saar if she is to take possession of that region in the event the January plebiscite favors her, it was revealed here today in connection with the extraordinary session of the Council of the League of Nations summoned for November to deal with the Saar question.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned authoritatively today that the League intends to make the Jewish question one of the main issues in considering the future of the Saar Valley. Baron Pompeo Aloisi, of Italy, will ask of Germany how she intends to guarantee the rights of the Jews in the Saar Valley if the Saarland is turned over to the Reich as a result of the January plebiscite.
TO ADOPT SPECIAL RESOLUTION
Should Germany fail to pledge respect of Jewish ights and should her answer be considered unsatisfactory, it is learned, the League of Nations will then adopt a special resolution concerning the rights of the Saarland Jews with the added proviso that if Germany refuses to accept this resolution, she will have shown that she cannot be trusted with control and administration of the Saar.
The fate of the 10,000 Saarland Jews and the undetermined number of refugees there from Germany proper has been a matter of deep concern not only to them and to Jews in other parts of the world but to France and other powers which foresaw a new influx of refugees from the Saar Valley as a result of extension of Nazi domination to this region. In view of prevailing economic conditions, a new refugee wave would spell serious problems for neigh-boring powers.
The determination of the League to obtain guarantee for the Jewish minority, while in line with the sentiments of most members of the Council and of public opinion as voiced here, is not entirely in line with the view of the League’s committee of jurists which recently informed the committee of three charged with carrying out the Saar plebiscite that, owing to the fact that there are no specific minority protection provisions in the text of the Versailles Treaty dealing with the Saar, the Council has no right to impose such obligations.
MAY ONLY RECOMMEND
The committee held that the Council can only make recommendations to this effect and it must be left to the State to decide whether it will undertake such obligations. The committee’s decision was based on purely legal grounds, it was pointed out today, and does not exclude a recommendation being made by the Council in the matter of guaranteeing minority rights.
In League circles here today it was felt that the League will demand of Germany assurances that full minorities rights will be accorded the Jews in the Saar and that their rights will not be abrogated or curtailed by discriminatory laws effected in the Reich.
Dr. Edouard Benes, Czechoslovakian Foreign Minister and president of the League Council, today received a delegation of Zionist Revisionists, headed by Dr. Segal of Paris, which came to ask protection for the Jews of the Saar. The delegation pointed out that if the territory should revert to Germany following the plebiscite, the Jews there would be subject to the persecution which is the lot of the German Jews.
Dr. Benes assured the delegation that he and the Council would examine carefully the entire problem of the Saar and that the League would firmly adhere to its principles and obligations.
Baron Aloisi also received the Revisionist delegation today and discussed the situation with them.
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