“Among the 30,000 Jews in Czechoslovakia there is a panic comparable only to that which I saw the day that Hitler marched into Prague.” British foreign correspondent G.E. R. Gedye writes in the weekly Journal-Tribune, in a dispatch from, Vienna. The dispatch in the pro-Bevanite publication adds that “now as then there are many unreported suicides.”
Mr. Gedye also reports that “already employees of some government organizations have been forced to ‘petition’ for the dismissal of all their Jewish colleagues. The Machiavellian skill with which the dictatorship has set the stage is paying high dividends. The anti-Semitic line is going over well with the local non-Jewish population.”
The Jews of Czechoslovakia have been given “due notice” that any contact with official representatives of Israel will mean a treason charge, the correspondent continues. “This last hope of emigration has been taken from the Zionists.”
Passover may be over, but your chance to support independent Jewish journalism isn't. Help JTA keep reporting the stories that define our era.
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.
