TREATMENT OF CZECHS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1940, Page 5

TREATMENT OF CZECHS

ARRESTS & OPPRESSION WORKERS RATED AS COOLIES. INTENSIFIED PERSECUTION OF JEWS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright LONDON, February 11. A message from Prague says that the German authorities as a protective measure took into custody between ’ 500 and 000 leading Czechs, including .M. Joseph Tlirushir, the leader of lhe Czech National Movement, and 120 former Czech officers.

A report from New York states that two American Franciscan nuns, who have returned by the liner Saturnia, said that'Nazis seized their church and convent 16 miles from Warsaw. Though not molested personally, the nuns in the Polish Corridor and Danzig were forced to adopt civilian clothes. A Berlin message says that Bohemia and Moravia are to be incorporated in the Reich Customs union. The Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Dr von Ncurath, announced that the Jews are being' eliminated from the protectorate's economic life. Jewish textile, clothing and leathergoods stores will close on April 1, after which the Protector is empowered to close all other Jewish businesses. Registration is announced of all Jewish shareholdings and real estate, giving with the present control of Jewish banks a complete hold over the Jews in Prague.

The Gestapo has fined 300 Jews and is also bringing pressure to bear on Jews individually, ordering all to get out. saying that they can illegally go to Palestine.

Details have just become known in London (states British official wireless) of a German decree of January 8 which in effect reduces to the status of coolies the Czech, Polish and Jewish workers in Germany. The decree, which was published in the “Reichsaar Beitsblatt” on January 15 over the signature of Herr Daeschncr as

"Sondertreuhander de Arbeit” (Director of Labour), places in the special, category of “Arbeiter Zweiter Klasse (workers of the 2nd class) all agricultural workers in the Reich not possessing German citizenship except those employed under a State contract. „

They will be paid at. a lower rate and are not entitled to overtime. About 1.500,000 Poles, several hundred thousand Czechs and 10.000 Jews are affected, German workers incurring the displeasure of the regime run the danger of being sent to join this army of outcasts.