The Grey Book: A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers ruleSnoek, Johan M.
Religion
The Grey Book: A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers rule
Snoek, Johan M.
Antisemitism; Christianity and other religions -- Judaism; Judaism -- Relations -- Christianity; Protestant churches -- Europe
In March, 1938, President Roosevelt invited thirty-three governments to join
in a co-operative effort to aid the emigration of refugees from Germany
and Austria. On July 6, 1938, the Intergovernmental Conference met at Evian,
France. Nearly all the delegates expressed their sympathy for the refugees
but were very careful not to assume any obligations on behalf of their
Governments. <34>
It is important to keep some of the major political events of those days in
mind. Italy attacked Ethiopia on October 3, 1935. In May, 1936, the Ethiopian
emperor went into exile into Great Britain. On March 2, 1936, the Rhineland
was remilitarized. On November 25, 1936, the anti-Comintern Pact with Japan
was signed. On July 16, 1936, civil war in Spain broke out. On September 30,
1938, the Munich agreement was signed by Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini and
Daladier. As a result, Sudetenland was occupied by Germany. Poland and
Hungary also occupied part of Czechoslovakia.
c. Crystal Night - the Outbreak of the War. (Nov., 1938-Summer, 1939)
On October 28, 1938, 15,000-17,000 Jews of Polish origin were rounded up and
expelled. On November 7, a seventeen-year-old Jewish boy, Herschel Grynspan,
whose parents had been among the people expelled to Poland, shot Ernst vom
Rath, a minor Nazi official in the Paris Embassy. He died two days later.
This was the pretext for unleashing a pogrom that has entered history under
the name Crystal Night: 7,500 Jewish shops were looted and windows of shops
and houses were smashed; many synagogues were burned; more than 26,000 Jews
were arrested, many of whom were sent to concentration camps; at least 91
were killed. [107]
On November 12, the Jews in Germany were ordered to pay a collective fine of
thousand million Reichsmark. On November 15, Jewish children were dismissed
from German schools. Jews were prohibited from visiting theatres, cinemas,
concert halls, museums and public baths. On December 8, a decree was issued
expelling Jews from the universities.
At the beginning of January, 1939, the "Aryanisation" of Jewish enterprises
began. Since January 17, 1939, Jews were forbidden to be employed in the
professions of dentist, pharmacist and veterinary surgeon. On January 30, 1939,
Hitler publicly declared that the Jewish race in Europe would be annihilated
if war broke out. <35>
Hitler annexed Czechia, on March 15, 1939. Slovakia became "independent".
In April, 1939, Mussolini occupied Albania.
From the beginning of 1938 until October 1, 1941 (when further emigration was
forbidden) an estimated 170,000 Jews left Germany. [108] Jews in Germany at
the beginning of the Hitler regime, numbered 499,682. The 1939 census,
registered within the borders of the pre-Hitler Reich, amounted to no more
than 213,930. [109]
7 GERMANY
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