1940: Religion

In continental United States in 1936 there were 256 religious bodies aggregating 55,807,366 members. In 1926 there were 213 denominations numbering 54,576,346 members. Largest in membership is the Protestant Church, taken collectively, with the Roman Catholic Church second. The latter, however, individually has a greater membership than any separate Protestant sect.

BAPTIST CHURCH

Northern Baptist Convention.

Meeting in Atlantic City in May, the most significant actions of the Convention related to issues of war and peace. It condemned war as a method of settling international disputes and the invasion of helpless peoples by totalitarian powers, and extended sympathy to the democracies of the world. It warned the public against hysteria and propaganda, and urged a careful scrutiny of news reports, domestic and foreign.

The Convention provided for registry of members of the denomination who are conscientious objectors to participation in war, and for the protection of their rights. It asked for a reconsideration by the President of his appointment of Myron C. Tayler as his personal representative to the Vatican. It referred to its General Council a motion favoring closer relationship with the Disciples of Christ. An independent Baptist pacifist organization was formed by persons attending the Convention. During the year several minor agencies of the denomination have been consolidated under one of the larger Boards. Ernest J. Millington, a layman of Cadillac, Mich., was elected president of the Convention for the coming year. The latest report of membership in Northern Baptist churches in the United States (1939-40) is 1,549,012 in 7,526 churches; as compared to 1,500,942 members in 7,445 churches the previous year. The 1941 meeting of the Convention will be held in Wichita, Kansas.

Southern Baptist Convention.

The Convention met in Baltimore in June. It passed resolutions favoring neutrality of the United States in war, also protesting against the shipment of war materials for Japan. It asked President Roosevelt to terminate the Taylor appointment to the Vatican. It declared for the removal of racial inequalities and injustices as regards Negroes. It declined membership in the World Council of Churches on the ground that joining would be an ecclesiastical act which the Convention has no power to take in behalf of its independent local churches. As an alternative it favored 'spiritual fellowship.'

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

As defined by its discoverer and founder, Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science is 'the scientific system of divine healing' (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. p. 123). Mrs. Eddy discovered this Christian teaching and practice in 1866, issued its textbook (just named) in 1875, and founded its Church (the Church of Christ, Scientist) at Boston in 1879. Now this spiritual and practical religion has adherents in all countries except those which have only one Church and those which do not allow any church or religion.

As of Dec. 1, 1940, there are 2,177 Churches of Christ, Scientist, and Christian Science Societies in the United States, 73 in Canada, 319 in the United Kingdom, 88 in Germany, and 201 in other countries. Besides these churches and societies, there are 72 Christian Science Organizations at universities or colleges, of which 69 are in the United States. There are also Christian Scientists in many places where formal organizations are not yet formed.

The most distinguishing feature of Christian Science teaching is its absolute distinction between what is real and what is apparent or seeming but unreal. This religion teaches its students to forsake and overcome every form of discord or evil on the basis of its unreality: that is, by demonstrating the divine Principle and true idea of reality. This it teaches them to do by means of spiritual power acting through spiritual law.

Christian Science teaches that the truth of being — the truth concerning God and man — includes a rule for its practice and a law by which its practice produces results. To a certain extent Jesus declared this rule and law when he said, 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free' (John 8:32). Accordingly, for an individual to gain his freedom from any form of error or harm, he should know the truth, the absolute truth of being, applicable to his case. Christian Science also demonstrates that this practice is effective when employed by one individual for another, because such is the unity of real being and such is the law of God.

Mrs. Eddy's works on Christian Science are published in five volumes by the Trustees under her will. They include 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,' 'Prose Works Other Than Science and Health,' 'Poetical Works,' and the Church Manual. The Manual contains the By-Laws of The Mother Church, including provisions for its activities, for branch churches, and for individual members.

The Christian Science Publishing Society, auxiliary to The Mother Church, issues the Christian Science Quarterly, containing citations (Lesson-Sermons) for individual study and public reading; The Christian Science Journal, a monthly; The Herald of Christian Science, which is published either monthly or quarterly in English and other languages, including Dutch, French, German, and Scandinavian; the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly; and The Christian Science Monitor, an international daily newspaper. Editions of the Quarterly and the Herald are printed in Braille type. The Monitor always includes an article on Christian Science, which is printed in English with a translation into one of many languages.

In the Sunday services of Christian Science churches and societies, readings from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook take the place of personal sermons. The Wednesday evening meetings of this denomination include readings from the same books, testimonies from persons who have been healed, and remarks on Christian Science by other voluntary speakers. Each church or society conducts a Sunday School for children up to the age of twenty years, which is regarded as an important part of the church work. Each church also maintains a Reading Room open to the public, where the Bible and authorized Christian Science literature can be read or obtained.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND

The Church of England is composed of the two provinces of Canterbury and York, with two archbishops, forty-one diocesan bishops, and thirty-three suffragan bishops. Of the forty-three dioceses, thirty are in the province of Canterbury and thirteen in the province of York. There are some 18,000 clergy of whom about 13,000 are incumbents of parishes. The Church is not supported by the State but it is in large measure controlled by the State. All bishops are nominated by the Crown, so too are the deans of all cathedral chapters, many of the canons and prebendaries, and the holders of a number of benefices. In practice this means that most of the dignitaries of the Church are chosen by the Prime Minister. While he customarily obtains ecclesiastical advice regarding these appointments he is under no obligation to do so. The Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act of 1919 gave the Church slightly increased powers of self-government yet left Parliament as the final authority. Measures enacted by the Assembly are referred to the Ecclesiastical Commission, which reports to Parliament. The Commission is made up of 15 members of the House of Lords nominated by the Lord Chancellor and 15 members of the House of Commons nominated by the Speaker. Since the abolition of the papal jurisdiction in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the royal supremacy over the Church has been of cardinal importance. That supremacy is now exercised by the Crown in Parliament, so this aspect of the Elizabethan settlement has resulted in lay control over the Church.

Branches of the Church of England, or churches in communion with it, are found throughout the British Empire and elsewhere, but none of these other churches is under parliamentary authority. Even in the United Kingdom three other churches of the Anglican communion are to be found over which neither English archbishop nor British Parliament has jurisdiction: the disestablished Church of Ireland, the Church of Wales, and the Episcopal Church of Scotland. The organizations known as the Church of England in Canada and the Church of England in Australia are churches in communion with the English Church rather than component parts of it. There are missionary dioceses outside Great Britain whose bishops are designated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and English usage is commonly accepted as the norm among Anglicans in the British Empire, but in general the English archbishops enjoy outside England only the prestige and dignity that comes from their being occupants of ancient metropolitical sees. There is little or no danger that the Archbishop of Canterbury will turn his primacy into an Anglican pseudo-papacy.

It is too early to estimate the effects of the war on the Church of England, but some consequences have already made themselves clear. The missionary work of the Church is being curtailed primarily because of lack of funds. This work is carried on by about a dozen voluntary societies, of which the largest and best known are the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. These societies spend annually about £1,000,000 on work in non-Christian lands. For the year 1940 this figure has been cut by at least £80,000, and much more drastic reductions are expected in the immediate future.

The material damage done by aerial warfare has included the destruction of many church buildings and more or less serious injury to others. Censorship of the news makes impossible any estimate of the amount of this damage, but among the better known edifices that have served as targets in the Blitzkrieg were the Cathedral of Coventry, which was destroyed; St. Paul's in London, which was badly damaged; St. Margaret's, Westminster, gutted by flames; Canterbury Cathedral, and Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Pictures of shattered churches appear frequently, without names, in English newspapers. Near the end of October the bishop of London said that in his diocese 32 churches had been destroyed or rendered unusable and 47 others seriously damaged; together with other churches less seriously hurt, and with such buildings as parish houses and mission halls, between 450 and 500 church buildings in the diocese of London have suffered. These figures do not include damage done by air raids in the last two months of 1941; and the destruction in London has been paralleled or exceeded in such cities as Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, and Southampton, that have received the special attention of the German air men.

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST

On account of the transfer of the date of the International Convention from fall till spring, no session was held in 1940. The Board of the United Christian Missionary Society, however, together with unofficial but influential publications of the Disciples churches have voiced their current convictions on numerous points. Thus, in contrast to the sentiments of many denominations, the Christian Evangelist offered a modified defense of the Taylor appointment to the Vatican, which the Christian Century violently condemned. The Christian Evangelist also criticized the Supreme Court decision against Jehovah's Witnesses in the flag salute case, as prejudicial to civil and religious liberty. In the field of the denomination's internal affairs, vigorous agitation took place against the delay in securing a full-time secretary for the International Convention according to previous authorization. Officials of the Disciples churches opposed the draft legislation in its earlier stages. Machinery for the registration of conscientious objectors was set up according to action of the 1939 Convention.

The third annual unofficial conference of representatives of the Disciples and the Churches of Christ, seeking for union of the two groups, was held in Lexington, Ky. The fraternal delegate of the Disciples to the Northern Baptist Convention renewed overtures of previous years, looking to the closer relations of the two bodies. Reciprocating action was taken by the Baptist body as a result of which preliminary conversations have been held looking to the reopening of the matter and a committee to consider the joint publication of a hymn book with the Northern Baptist Convention was unofficially constituted. The important Commission for Restudy of the Disciples has continued its work. The United Christian Missionary Society extended aid to the British Disciples churches in the support of their missions. The School of Religion of Butler University, a leading theological seminary of the Disciples, began the publication of the Shane Review, a journal of Christian scholarship. During the fall of 1940 an important series of 'Brotherhood Conferences' was initiated, designed to cover all the more important Disciples centers of the nation. A membership of 1,658,966 in 7,974 churches was reported as of June 30, 1940.

FRIENDS, SOCIETY OF

Numerous groups of Friends during the year 1940 reaffirmed their traditional attitudes toward war, but the Friends have not been behind the sporadic refusals of ministers and theological students to register under the conscription law. An important campaign was conducted by the American Friends Service Committee in eleven colleges (mainly under Friends' auspices) designed to 'build an informed, articulate public opinion directed toward world peace.' Groups of 'peace volunteers' have been organized in numerous communities to 'aid in keeping America out of the war.' Civilian camps for conscientious objectors who have been drafted have been set up, so far with the acquiescence of the Federal War Department. The Friends Service Committee has continued its extraordinary work for war refugees on the continent of Europe, and in some cases has served as the agent of other denominations. It has particularly devoted itself to the feeding of civilians in the occupied European countries so far as permitted and maintains that its work has been carried out and can be extended without seizure of supplies by military authorities or without interference with its administration.

JEWS

Of most vital concern for the Jews of the world during 1940 was the virtual destruction of the Jewish communities of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, and Denmark through ruthless invasions by the German armies in May and June. Of similar importance, also, was the accession to power in Rumania of the anti-Semitic, Iron Guardist regime of Ion Antonescu after the resignation and flight of King Carol.

An account of the facts concerning the treatment of the Jews, and of organized movements to aid them during the year 1940, arranged by countries in alphabetical sequence, follows:

Australia.

Early in May, the Western Australia government approved a proposal to give free land to the League for Jewish Territorial Colonization in the Kimberley district. The plan provides for the settlement of young Jewish farmers on a 7,000,000-acre tract declared by experts to have a climate, rainfall and soil suitable for a well-planned irrigational and farming project. The total expense would be borne by the Colonization League, with the aid of world Jewry.

Belgium.

Before the German Nazi invasion of Belgium on May 10, 1940, the American Joint Distribution Committee had been aiding in the maintenance of 15,000 of the 22,000 German Jewish refugees in Belgium; both Belgian Jews and the Belgian Government also had contributed to refugee relief.

The Nazi invasion disrupted the lives of the 60,000 native Jews of Belgium as well as of the refugees. Thousands attempted to flee from Belgium into France and England. Large numbers of German Jewish refugees unable to leave were seized by the Nazi police and sent to German concentration camps.

In August, increasing numbers of Belgian Jews were forced into virtual slavery by being put to work under strict Nazi supervision in clearing away the ruins of Belgian cities and villages bombarded and destroyed by the Nazi hordes in the May invasion. Late in August, by decree of the German governor of Antwerp, all Jews and Jewesses of that city were compelled to wear in public at all times yellow armbands (reminiscent of the Jew-badge of the Middle Ages) containing the six-pointed Jewish star. Later this decree was rescinded when thousands of non-Jews protested against the decree by wearing the yellow armbands themselves.

On Nov. 8, Alexander von Falkenhausen, German military commander of Belgium, issued a decree forbidding Jews who fled from Belgium during the German invasion to return to their homes. In the last week of November, another decree forbade Belgian Jews to engage in any profession or function connected with teaching, education, the administration of justice, radio and public news, or to hold any administrative or political office.

Bulgaria.

During the year the Jewish population of Bulgaria, numbering some 50,000, or barely 7/10 of 1 per cent of the total population, were subjected to increasing Nazi pressure. In the early part of October, the Cabinet issued a proposed decree 'for the protection of the nation.' The actual decree, issued late in November, prohibited the Bulgarian Jews, most of whom are small merchants and traders, from holding positions in the army and in the state and municipal government service. Jews' participation in all professions was reduced to their proportion of the general population. This represents the first anti-Jewish law of its kind ever passed in Bulgaria. (See also BULGARIA.)

Canada.

It was announced in March that Canada had profited materially from the influx of from 5,000 to 6,000 German and Czechoslovakian Jewish and non-Jewish refugees admitted since September 1938. These brought with them capital valued at $20,000,000, with which industries were set up in Manitoba (beetsugar), Ottawa (Bohemian glassware), Montreal (tennis racquet factory, and period furniture factory), and other parts of Canada.

Czechoslovakia:

Bohemia and Moravia:

In January deportations of Jews from Bohemia and Moravia to the 'Jewish reservation' at Lublin, Poland, were resumed, 600 arriving at Lublin in a single day. Thousands already in the Lublin camp were reported to have escaped into Russian-occupied Eastern Poland, with the connivance of the German guards; this was declared by observers to be a means of ridding German-controlled lands of all Jews after seizure of their property and possessions. To prevent further infiltration of Jews into Russian-held territory, Soviet troops erected barbed wire fences and stationed armed guards along the border.

Early in February new anti-Jewish decrees were proclaimed in Bohemia and Moravia. These included the compulsory closing, by April 1, 1940, of all clothing, leather goods and textile stores owned by Jews, and compulsory registration by Jewish businessmen of all their property. All bank and credit accounts of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia were blocked by the Nazi 'protectorate' government, Jews were denied permission to withdraw from such accounts more than 1,500 Czech kronen a week.

Late in February, the German Gestapo forbade further emigration from the protectorate of Jewish men from 18 to 45 years of age. All Jews above and below military age, and all Jewish women were still subjected to pressure by the Gestapo to force them to leave the country, even without valid passports for other lands, leaving all their possessions behind. In April all Jews in Prague were compelled to vacate their homes in modern apartment buildings; these were set aside for the use of 'Aryan' families. All Czech civil servants married to Jewesses were ordered to divorce their wives or resign from their positions. By the end of October, it was reported that 200,000 Jews still remained in the former Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, 40,000 of them in Prague.

Slovakia.

Early in February, the Hlinka Guards demanded harsher exclusive measures against the Jews. All Slovakian Jews were compelled for a time to report twice a week for street-cleaning chores, as in Germany. The Slovakian Parliament was declared to be extremely reluctant, however, to order the expulsion of Jews from Slovakian industrial and economic life, lest Germans enter in their places.

In September, the Slovakian Government intensified its anti-Jewish measures; these included: 'conscription' of Jewish-owned property; the barring of Jews from higher education; segregation of all Jewish public school children, with a view to their forced emigration; barring of Jews from all professions, and occupations except manual trades. The 'conscription' (registration) law required Jewish citizens of Slovakia to report to the authorities a completely itemized list of all their possessions in Slovakia and elsewhere, under penalty of five years imprisonment and confiscation of all property.

Denmark.

Immediately after Denmark was invaded and seized by German troops on April 9, 1940, large numbers of the 1,200 German Jews reported to have fled thither since 1933 were arrested by Nazi police and interned in Nazi concentration camps. In addition the 6,500 native Danish Jews came under Nazi German control. Arrests of refugee and native Jews continued into May, when a Nazi decree forbade refugee Jews in Denmark to leave the land, even if they had already received a visa for some other country. A number of anti-Jewish decrees also were put into force, including one annulling all marriages between Jews and non-Jews from 1930 on, and forbidding further intermarriage between Danish Jews and Danish non-Jews. Danish newspapers were forced to print propaganda against the Jews in a vain attempt to break through the resistance of the Danish population, which was sympathetic toward the Jews.

By Aug. 15, all Danish Jews were removed from their positions in the civil service and in government offices. A German decree forbade Jews to own newspapers, banks, businesses, factories or large commercial enterprises.

Dominican Republic.

On Jan. 30, 1940, a contract was signed by former president Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic for the immediate admission and settlement in this Republic of 500 Jewish and non-Jewish refugee families from Central and Western Europe. Under the contract, settlers will lead farming and pioneering lives on a 2,600-acre tract near Sosua donated for this purpose by General Trujillo. They are to receive Dominican citizenship. Provision was made for the ultimate admission and settlement of 25,000 refugees within ten years.

In mid-June General Trujillo agreed to admit to the Dominican Republic for settlement at Sosua 1,000 additional European refugee youths and children without regard to sectarian lines. Admission was also permitted to 200 non-sectarian (Jewish and non-Jewish) adult settlers, under a fund of $230,000 raised for this purpose. (See also DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.)

Finland.

In June and July, all Finnish Jews living in territory extorted from Finland by Russia abandoned their homes and property and moved into the inland sections of Finland, in preference to giving up their Finnish citizenship. By decision of the Finnish government, Jewish and non-Jewish refugee physicians, dentists and skilled workers were admitted to Finland even without passports.

France.

The lives and property of the 400,000 Jews of France, including 200,000 in Paris alone, were seriously jeopardized as a result of the German invasion of France in June, 1940. A total of 170,000 Jews fled from Paris before the German conquest on June 14; many of these, small shopkeepers, returned and reopened their shops in mid-July. Thousands of Jews fled also from Alsace-Lorraine, and many others, including both French Jews and refugees, applied for American visas. Large numbers of Jews, engaged chiefly in banking, the fur trade, and the motion-picture industry, had succeeded in escaping from France before the German invasion. Many, including Baron Robert de Rothschild of Paris and other members of the well-known banking family, escaped into Portugal via the Spanish border. Other distinguished refugees who escaped from France to the United States included the author Lion Feuchtwanger, Franz Werfel the novelist, and Henry Bernstein the dramatist.

Terrific suffering was endured according to reports, by most of the 200,000 Jewish refugees who lived in France at the outbreak of the European War in September 1939, and after May 1940. They were subjected to deprivation of all their property, attacks by Nazis, and internment, in many cases, in Nazi concentration camps after unsuccessful attempts to flee to southern France and Portugal. Thirty thousand Jewish refugees in Nazi-occupied parts of France were reported to be in desperate plight, suffering from lack of clothing and food. Relief work among these refugees by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was stopped. Some 800 French and refugee Jews were reported to have committed suicide in June. Thousands of Polish and French Jewish refugees who had fled to the Spanish border were refused even temporary visas by the Spanish government.

Violent attacks on the French Jews were made by French newspapers. One declared that in the 'new France' there was no longer a place for Jews; it recommended seriously that all Jews in France be deported, and segregated on some such island as Madagascar. Paris-Soir urged 'the total and bold solution of the Jewish problem in France, for the Jews of France are responsible for the European War and for the defeat of France.'

In August the Pétain government agreed to deliver over to the Germans all refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish, who had entered France from Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The Vichy government also turned over to the German Gestapo the young Polish-German youth, Herschel Grynszpan, who had killed Ernst von Rath, assistant to the German ambassador in Paris, on Nov. 7, 1938, thereby precipitating fierce anti-Jewish pogroms, in Germany; the youth was at once taken to Germany to serve a term of twenty years in a penitentiary.

Anti-Semitic riots staged and organized in September in Paris and other French cities by the followers of Jacques Doriot, were declared by Doriot, in his weekly L'emancipation nationale, to have as their object the passage of a state decree 'provisionally settling the fate of the Jews and reestablishing the French in their rights, as part of a general European settlement of the Jewish problem.' He repeatedly urged the expulsion of all Jews from France and the rest of Europe.

Early in November, large numbers of Jews were deported from Alsace-Lorraine, the Palatinate, the Saar and Baden into the French-occupied regions of southern France, the Basses Pyrénées. They were permitted to take with them only a little clothing and a small sum of money.

Germany.

During the early part of January, the scanty ration cards issued to the population in Germany were still further reduced in the case of all Jews, who were forbidden to secure a certain portion of their meat allowance, and whose allowance for all podded vegetables such as beans, peas and lentils was totally cancelled. Jews were ordered to have the capital letter 'J' (standing for 'Jude,' i.e., Jew) stamped on their ration cards (as on their passports and visas); German Jews were denied textile goods and clothing cards for the purchase of wearing apparel. All Jews in German cities were ordered to remain in their homes after 8 P.M. nightly.

The Jews left in Berlin were reported as numbering 95,000. Twenty thousand of these were forcibly assigned by the Nazi government to such manual tasks as street-cleaning, snow-shoveling, road-building and forestry work, being rigorously separated from non-Jews. Jewish women were for a time compelled to donate their services as textile workers, farmhands, and maids.

In the middle of January the Nazis forbade the emigration of Jews of military age, and early in February the government unofficially reduced emigration of Jews of any age for fear that Jews leaving the country might give important information to Germany's enemies or might enter their military service.

In Vienna in mid-March a veritable ghetto was established when three districts of the former Austrian capital were set apart for the exclusive residence of Jews. These districts are so small and crowded that often two or more families, as many as eight persons, have to live in one room, under appalling sanitary conditions. Jews confined to this 'ghetto' must shop in special stores assigned to them. Virtual starvation was reported to be the lot of these unfortunates, since in all stores the needs of the 'Aryan' or non-Jewish population of Vienna are served first, and Jews are given or sold only the left-over food supplies, if any.

In accordance with a report released early in April by the Scientific Institute of the German Labor Front, the number of Jews in Germany was reduced from about 499,000 in 1933 to about 185,000 in 1939. Nine-tenths of all Jews remaining in Germany are old or infirm. The German press at the time described them as 'already racially dead.'

By July, due to fear of Nazi infiltration and 'fifth column' activities, the United States imposed much more rigorous tests for the issuing of visas to would be emigrants from Germany to America, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

Late in October, practically all the Jews remaining in the German provinces of Baden and the Palatinate, opposite Alsace, some 9,000 in number, were transported away from these regions to be shipped to camps in the Basses Pyrénées in the southern part of France, not occupied by the Germans. Later reports emanating from their camp quarters stated that these unfortunate Jews were living without adequate shelter, food or sanitary arrangements in crowded quarters amid the greatest of deprivations. An additional thousand or more refugees were driven from Germany to these concentration camps in the early part of November. (See also GERMANY.)

Great Britain.

On March 6 the House of Commons supported and approved the government's policy of restricting purchases of land from Arabs by Jews in Palestine as a war-time requirement dictated by the necessity of preventing disorders and disaffection from spreading against the British cause among the Arabs of Palestine and those of other lands of the Near East. The outvoted minority attacked the restrictive act as a shameful betrayal of the Jews, and an act which abused the trust which the League of Nations had reposed in England.

Early in September it was announced that there was soon to be equipped and supported by Great Britain, for service against Germany, an all-Jewish army of world-wide Jews consisting of 100,000 men, not including Jewish troops enlisted in Palestine. The new army, it was reported, was being raised with the partial aid of the New Zionist Organization (the Zionist Revisionists), and was to include a branch of the Royal Air Force. Additional financial aid for this new project was sought among Jews in the United States, Canada and South American countries.

The annual conference of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, meeting in London late in October, urged the British government to accept the offer of the Jewish Agency for Palestine to mobilize all the resources of Palestine and to raise a separate Jewish army in Palestine for service against Germany and Italy.

Hungary.

In mid-April it was reported in Hungary that as a practical result of the anti-Jewish law passed in May, 1939, more than 97 per cent of the Jews of Budapest had been disenfranchised.

In most parts of Hungary, the economic restrictions of the anti-Jewish laws of May, 1939, went into effect in May, 1940. The number of Jews engaged in the professions and in the skilled crafts has been reduced, by this legislation, to 6 per cent (the Jewish proportion of the total population). (See also HUNGARY.)

Italy.

On March 1 the Italian government put into force the new 'Racial Laws' passed on June 29, 1939. These new decrees prevent Jews from performing any kind of military service, forbid them to own, manage or direct any important enterprise dealing with the defense of the land, or from engaging in businesses or enterprises in which more than 100 employees are engaged. All Italian Jewish professional men are forbidden to practice their professions, with the exception of doctors, attorneys and pharmacists who are permitted to practice among Jews. This is an empty exception, since the Jews of Italy number barely 47,000, or less than one-tenth of one per cent of the total population, and are unable to earn a living serving only their co-religionists.

In protest against the provisions of this law, Pope Pius XII appointed to the position of restorer of ancient maps at the Vatican, Professor Roberto Almagia, a Jewish scholar who had been discharged from his position as historian and geographer on the staff of the University of Rome. In addition, the Vatican authorities appointed several noted Jewish scholars and professional men to positions with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican City.

During the summer, for unknown reasons, thousands of Jews in Italy, especially foreign-born Jews and native Italian Jews whose citizenship had been revoked in September 1938, were arrested by the police.

Netherlands.

The German Nazi invasion of peaceful and neutral Holland, on May 10, 1940, brought terror, mistreatment and death to the Jewish population of 155,000 and to approximately 22,500 German and Austrian Jewish refugees who were in the land at the time. Thousands of these Jewish refugees were captured by the Nazi Gestapo (secret police) or troops, and were sent back to Germany for internment in concentration camps.

A number of diamond-merchants had managed to escape from The Netherlands before or during the Nazi invasion, bearing large portions of their stocks to France or England. Hundreds of Jewish and non-Jewish diamond merchants, nevertheless, were arrested during the early days of the Nazi invasion, tortured, and deprived of their possessions. Other Jewish and non-Jewish refugees fleeing along Dutch roads into Belgium and France were ruthlessly machine-gunned by German aviators in the hope of recovering diamonds from them, and many other Jews seeking to escape in small boats were killed.

Large numbers of Jews who had emigrated to The Netherlands from Poland were sent to the Lublin 'Jewish reservation' in Poland. Other Jewish refugees, in great numbers, were sent back to Germany. Jewish-owned stores were invaded by Nazi troops supplied with trucks, who stripped the stores of their entire stocks, and shipped them back to Germany. Private houses inhabited by Jews were also stripped of all furnishings.

Norway.

When the Nazis ruthlessly invaded Norway on April 9, 1940, they found some 2,000 German Jews who had taken refuge there since 1933; many of these unfortunates were arrested by German Gestapo agents and interned in concentration camps. In addition, some 1,500 permanent Jewish citizens of Norway came under Nazi control.

Palestine.

During 1940 the continuance of the second World War halted all disturbances and ill will between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land. For the period of the war, at least, the Arabs were reported to have ceased their insistent demands for self-rule and autonomy, and joined with Jews wholeheartedly in aiding the British against the Germans and Italians.

In February the British Government, stating that the number of Jews admitted to Palestine during the preceding six months amounted to over 10,000, declared itself unable to increase the Jewish immigration quota, although British Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald announced that during the next few years a considerable immigration of Jews into Palestine would be permitted. In mid-February the American Friends of Jewish Palestine announced the arrival in Palestine of 2,000 Jewish refugees who had had to be smuggled in illegally, death from starvation and privation being the only alternative. These unfortunates had been forced out of Germany, after being stripped of all their possessions, and had been sent down the Danube River in barges to the Black Sea.

Late in March the Palestinian government ordered the internment of 1,600 illegal immigrants who had landed at Haifa after wandering through the Near East for more than six months. At the same time the government announced that increased penalties would be imposed on illegal immigrants as well as on all owners, agents or captains of ships who attempted to smuggle such immigrants into the land.

More than a hundred thousand Palestinian Jewish workers halted their work and business on Nov. 21 in protest against the driving away from the harbor of Haifa on Nov. 11 of two shiploads of European Jewish refugees numbering 1,722, including women and children. At first the British Government declared that these refugees would be sent to other British colonies for the duration of the war, but when several days later one of the steamships, the Patria, suddenly and inexplicably exploded, killing 55 and leaving 198 refugees missing, and presumably drowned, the Government announced that, 'as an exceptional act of mercy, and after taking all circumstances into consideration, particularly the terrible experiences undergone by these Jewish refugees,' it would allow the survivors of the Patria explosion (about 1,600 in number) to remain in Palestine, their number to be deducted from the 1941 immigration quota.