LEAGUE MUST ACT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 306, 31 December 1935, Page 7

LEAGUE MUST ACT

GERMAN PERSECUTION A HUMAN CALAMITY EXILE FOR THOUSANDS A DANGER TO PEACE [By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright] GENEVA, Dec. 29. Mr. Janies MacDonald, High Commissioner for Jewish, and other refugees from Germany, in a letter to M. Avenol, resigning the post to which the League Council appointed him in 1933, deplores the intensified persecution of minorities in Germany and urges the intervention of the League to avert an even more terrible human calamity. Mr. MacDonald states that the conditions in Germany which create refugees have developed so catastrophically that reconsideration by the League of the whole situation is essential.

“Intensified persecution threatens pauperisation or exile to hundreds of thousands of German men, women and children, not only to Jews, but to non-Aryan Christians who are treated as Jews, and to Protestants and Catholics, who, in obedience to their faith and conscience, dared to resist the absolute will of the Nazi State,” he declares.

“More than 500,000 people, against whom no charge can be made except that they are not what the Nazis choose to regard as ‘Nordic,’ are being crushed. Efforts must be made to remove or mitigate the causes creating refugees. This could not have been part of the work of the High Commissioner’s office. It is apolitical function properly belonging to the League itself. “The victims of terrorism are being driven to the point at which, in utter anguish and despair, they may burst the frontier in fresh waves of refugees, because more than half of the Jews remaining in Germany have already been deprived of their livelihood.

“The moral authority of the League and its members must be directed to appealing to Germany in the name of humanity. Pity and reason alike must inspire the hope that intercession will meet with a response. Otherwise it will continue to constitute a danger to international peace. Considerations of diplomatic correctness must yield to those of common humanity. I cannot remain silent.” The News-Chronicle, in a leader pointing out that Mr MacDonald is an American and was previously friendly with Germany, expresses the opinion that his indictment will provoke worldwide reaction which Herr Hitler wilt ignore at his peril. The Daily Herald understands that' the League Council, at its meeting in January, is almost certain to decide to make German refugees a direct League responsibility. The Tinies, in a leader, says: “It is incredible that leaders who protest their anxiety that Germany should be understood and welcome in the European and American opinion.” The Daily Telegraph, in a loader, says: “Germany’s best friends hope that she will consider the world’s advice regarding the victims.”

DAMNING INDICTMENT

LONDON PRESS COMMENT Received Dec. 30, 9.5 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 29. ’There are few more damning indictments o-f a civilised nation than Mr James MacDonald, says the NewsChronicle in drawing attention to his revelation that 435,000 Jews and tens of thousands of Christian non-Aryans classified as Jews are deprived of citizenship, excluded from all public offices and professions, and any part In German cultural and intellectual life, and subjected to every humiliation. Even Jewish and non-Ayran children do not escape •cruel forms of segregation and persecution, while Nazi publications sponsored by the Government ptir Aryan children to hate, attack, and spy upon Jews and non-Aryans and cite their parents completely to extirpate Jews. Moreover, in many parts of the country there is a systematic attempt to starve the Jews who, despite the prohibition of migration and anti-Semitic campaign in the cities, are fleeing thereto as the only hope of escape, at least for a time, from more brutal forms of persecution. Tens of thousands arc seeking to escape from Germany, which is only* possible if they sacrifice the whole or the greater part of their savings.