Venizelos Demands Jews Surrender Greek Suffrag

Elutherios Venizelos, many times Premier of Greece, war-time dictator of the country and leader of the Liberal party, which recently suffered defeat at the polls, today openly demanded that Greek Jews voluntarily surrender their hard-won franchise in return for the cessation of the violent anti-Semitic campaing carried on by the Liberal party and its press.

Venizelos, who blames the Jews of Greece for his political defeats and the creation of bitter feeling between the various political groups, demands the return of the electoral college for the Jews, a measure which the Greek Jewish community is strenuously opposing.

Up to May 1933, Greek Jews voted in a sort of political ghetto, called an electoral college. They chose their own representatives from a separate Jewish list. Last year this “electoral college” was abolished and the Jews of Greece voted with the rest of the population.

In a letter to the Jewish senator, Aaron Sciaky, Venizelos delivered his ultimatum to the Jews. At the same time the Liberal party press, including the notorious Jew-baiting daily Makedonia, suspended all attacks on the Jews pending a decision on the Venizelos ultimatum.

VIRULENT ANTI-SEMITES

The Venizelos campaign against the Jews began in June 1933 and has been raging ever since. The campaign centered in Salonica, where there are 60,000 Jews, and where

The Venizelist papers in Salonica and elsewhere have carried daily attacks on the Jews, accusing them of being strangers in Greece and of the having opposed ”all Greek national efforts.” Jews were attacked on the streets of Salonica and the Liberal press openly urged the populance to ”beat the Jews.”

You are out for ware. are you Jews?” a front page article in Makedonia asked. ”You shall have it. There are 60,000 Jews in Salonica which means that there are 60,000 conspirators in the city. The Jews of Salonica are a dangerous and treacherous element. They have always been working against Greek authority.

”We have been too indulgent to ward the Jews”, Makedona declared. ”The Jews are the enemies of Greece. They have declared ware upon us and we shall accept their insolent challenge. We shall adopt the necessary attitude toward these odious foreigers, these accuresed Jews who of conspiracy and shalme. We have aready beaten them once. This tme we shall exterminate them completely,” Makedonia said.

In addition to this anti-Semitic agitation of the Liberal press, a Greek Nazi party, the EEE, was formed. Leading Greek Journals openly accused the German Nazis of having spent ten million drachmas in Greece in recent months.