BAPTIST CHURCHES
Northern Baptist Convention.
The Northern Baptist Convention, attended by 1,950 official delegates, was held at Wichita, Kans., in May and elected Rev. William A. Elliott President for the current year. Denominational receipts for the previous year under the unified budget were reported as having exceeded the budget goal of $2,500,000 in addition to which $145,000 was raised for a 'world-relief' fund. This fund was supplemented during the second half of 1941 by approximately $500,000. The Convention passed a resolution advocating United States aid to the democracies short of war. It strengthened its Committee on Army and Navy Chaplaincy. A Commission report elaborating the Baptist social ideals and taking advanced positions at numerous points was adopted. The Convention initiated a system of old-age security for lay employees of the churches. Its Committee on Relations with Other Religious Bodies recommended fraternal and spiritual contacts with the Disciples of Christ but did not consider that the advocacy of the union of the two bodies was timely. Six groups of denominational young people were united into the Baptist Youth Fellowship and a unified curriculum of Sunday School instruction was approved. The Northern Baptist Convention now reports 7,503 churches with a membership of 1,561,289.
Important changes in the educational work of the denomination were recorded during the year. The Board of Education and the American Baptist Publication Society agreed upon measures which, while not constituting a definite merger, provide for close coordination of the activities of the two educational organizations.
Southern Baptist Convention.
The annual session of the Southern Baptist Convention occurred in Birmingham. Ala., in May. In view of what were regarded as increasingly crucial relations with government, the Temporary Committee on Public Relations was erected into a standing committee charged with responsibility in this field. The Convention opposed the extension of social security legislation to include the lay employees of the church, as an unwarranted exercise of the supervisory authority of the state over the church. Notable progress was reported in securing 'World Emergency Funds,' devoted in large part to the support of missions of the British Baptist churches curtailed by the war. The By-Laws of the Convention were modified so as to forbid the reelection of members of the Executive Committee for fear that it would become a super-body dominating the Convention. A calendar assigning time to the recognized interest of the church was adopted in order to unify the denominational emphases throughout the year. The Social Service Committee presented strong resolutions on temperance and on just race relations, and it was reported that the Convention is supporting eighteen teachers of Bible in Baptist Negro colleges. Provision for increasing stress upon evangelism was ordered and efforts were reported in securing a wider hearing for Southern Baptists on national radio programs. The Convention continued the campaign for reconnecting non-resident members — estimated as 30 per cent of the entire membership of the church — with the local churches near their present places of residence.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
At the end of 1941, Christian Science was represented by approximately 2,862 churches and societies, of which about seventy-six per cent are in the United States and about twenty-four per cent are in other countries. The word 'approximately' is here used because of wartime conditions in European countries. In Germany, where there were eighty-eight Christian Science churches and societies, the Hitler government has banned Christian Science and confiscated its property. With this exception, 1941 has been a year of normal growth and progress for the Christian Science denomination.
In particular, Christian Science healing has progressed as usual. Nearly 11,000 practitioners, having cards in the Christian Science Journal, are engaged exclusively in Christian Science healing work. There are a great many other practitioners who are devoting as much of their time as they can to the practice although otherwise employed.
The Christian Science textbook, 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,' by Mary Baker Eddy, is published in twenty-two editions. Each issue is intended to meet a particular need. The latest addition to this list is the Subscription Edition, issued and sold during the past year. The publishers describe it as 'a limited edition of great beauty and quality, set in specially-cut Laurentian type, which is a superb example of printing type that follows the characteristics of hand lettering.' The Subscription Edition is also printed on the finest grade of English hand-made paper, bound in the finest quality of morocco, and dyed a deep blue. This edition sold for $100.
The Christian Science Monitor distinguished itself in 1941, in common with other outstanding leaders of the American press, by foreseeing the meaning and menace of the World War to the United States of America and free men everywhere. Steadily throughout the year it urged editorially that Americans should awake and be prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with those throughout the world who are resisting the forces of aggression and human slavery. Early in the year it ran an important series of articles, 'America: Slave or Free?' Simultaneously it withdrew its chief foreign correspondents from the major censorship countries and published a series, 'Inside the War,' which told many hitherto undisclosed facts of events.
The newspaper significantly extended its news service — with distribution of its printed product forbidden in most of Continental Europe — by utilizing shortwave radio to get its news service and broad humanitarian viewpoint to such people in all parts of the world as were able to listen to shortwave radio-casts. There were many evidences that use of this new medium had continued the paper's usefulness where its physical distribution was temporarily curtailed.
During the year from Oct. 1, 1940, the Christian Science Mother Church (The First Church of Christ. Scientist, in Boston, Mass.) and its branch churches and societies in the United States have carried on a remarkable war relief work. During this time, the war relief committees formed by these churches shipped over 700,000 pounds of clothing, worth over $700,000, to Great Britain, where other Christian Science committees distributed the clothing for the benefit of sufferers from the war without regard to their religious faiths. These shipments filled 4,482 crates of standard size. Since Oct. 1, 1941, 1,000 more crates of clothing have been shipped to Great Britain by the same committees to be handled in Great Britain in the same way. Of all these shipments, only 25 crates have been lost, a loss which amounts to less than one-half of one per cent of the total shipments.
The Christian Scientists in the United States have also accepted other opportunities for service in connection with the Second World War. Thus, eight army chaplains have been allotted to the Christian Science denomination. Furthermore, the Christian Science Mother Church has instituted a Christian Science Camp Welfare Work, which has sixty-five workers as of Dec. 1, 1941, who are commissioned by this Church to render a morale, recreational, religious, and healing service to the men in the army, navy, and marine corps. These workers also co-operate with chaplains and morale officers.
The Christian Science Board of Lectureship consists now of twenty-two members, of whom six are women and sixteen are men. The function of these lecturers is to make Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy correctly known to the public everywhere. This they do by means of free public lectures, usually under the auspices of Christian Science churches or societies. In 1941, wartime conditions in Europe and elsewhere sometimes seemed to limit the field for lectures on Christian Science, but the Board as a whole had a busy and a fruitful year.
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
The Church of England, which is established by law in such wise that while it is not state-supported it is largely state-controlled, consists of the two provinces of Canterbury and York, into which are gathered forty-three dioceses that are, in turn, subdivided into 12,683 ecclesiastical parishes. The latest compiled statistics, three years old but approximately accurate still, list 12,558 beneficed clergy and 4,555 curates. These figures include the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, but not Wales. The Church in Wales was disestablished and separated from the province of Canterbury by Acts of Parliament of 1914 and 1919, effective from March 31, 1920. Other churches of the Anglican communion in Great Britain that are not integral parts of the Church of England are the Episcopal Church of Scotland and the disestablished Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland with some members in Eire. The Church of England in Canada and the Church of England in Australia are also in communion with the Church of England and bound to it by many close ties but they are not, strictly speaking, parts of it.
In England all bishops and the deans of cathedrals are designated by the Crown — in practise, by the Prime Minister — as are many canons and prebendaries; there are other benefices, too, in the gift of the Crown, and a number in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. Private persons present to about 7,000 livings; most of the others are in the gift of the bishops, the cathedral chapters, and the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. This means that the rectors or vicars of more than half the parishes are appointed by lay patrons. Whether the patron be the Crown, a layman, an ecclesiastic, or a corporation, the parishioners have no voice in choosing their parson. How many members the Church of England has cannot be stated definitely because the only figures are of the confirmed communicants, who are but a fraction of the baptized members of the Church. It may be noted that of the marriages in England between 55 and 56 per cent are solemnised by the Anglican clergy, between 28 and 29 per cent take place in registry offices, and the remaining 15 to 17 per cent are solemnised by ministers other than those of the Church of England.
At present no one can hazard a suggestion regarding the effects that the war will have on the English Church. Hundreds of churches have been destroyed and many hundreds more damaged by air raids; every fresh raid of any intensity lengthens the list of bombed churches. Many of these were familiar to thousands of visitors to England, and some had special associations for Americans — such as All Hallows, Tower Hill, where William Penn was baptized and President John Quincy Adams was married. It is almost certain that a considerable number of the destroyed churches will never be rebuilt. Such material damage can be measured; but it is difficult to find out how large a part the Church of England is playing in the life of the nation at war, or whether it will be prepared adequately to cope with the spiritual problems of postwar reconstruction.
Probably the most significant single event in the Church of England in 1941 was the conference held at Malvern College in January. Presided over by the Archbishop of York, its sponsors included twenty-three bishops, fourteen deans, and about two hundred others. Among the laity at the conference whose names are familiar to Americans were the poet T. S. Eliot, the novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, the editor-philosopher-critic J. Middleton Murry. The conference dealt with postwar problems and the relation of the Church to Society; and its sessions showed an awareness of social issues, recognition of the fact that governments are fumbling in their approach to these issues, and a belief that it is the Church's duty to deal fearlessly with them. The conference adopted unanimously a resolution offered by the Archbishop, which said in part, 'Our aim must be the unification of Europe as a cooperative commonwealth... Christian doctrine must insist that production exists for consumption (rather than) to bring profits to the producer ... The rights of labor must be recognized as in principle equal to those of capital in the control of industry.' An amendment, offered by the Liberal M. P. Sir Richard Acland and passed by a large majority, declared that 'the ownership of the great resources of our community ... (by) private individuals is a stumbling block.'
On Jan. 21, 1942, the Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England for 13 years announced his resignation to be effective March 31. He was 77 years of age.
DISCIPLES OF CHRIST
The Disciples of Christ met in International Convention at St. Louis, May 1-7, 1941, and elected Rev. W. A. Shullenberger, D. D., of the Central Church, Indianapolis, as president. A new constitution reported to a previous session of the International Convention was adopted. The character of the International Convention as a mass meeting in which any individual member of a Disciples church may sit, is retained, and the constitution affirms the position that the Convention has no authority over local churches or the agencies of the denomination. On the side of centralization, however, it provides for the unified financial support of the agencies and the submission of their plans to a Budget Committee. It also sets up a Committee of Recommendations as a body of delegates appointed by state and provincial conventions, to control the business of the International Convention and to provide recognition for societies or agencies which have agreed to report to the Convention and submit their plans to its inspection. The new constitution also provides for a full-time Secretary as a general executive of the Convention. The Emergency Million Campaign for the liquidation of the debts of the missionary agencies was set up in July. Provision was made for a Defense Work Committee to assist churches in communities affected by the War. A proposal to hold the next session of the Convention as a joint session with the Northern Baptist Convention was voted down in view of sentiment on both sides that such a meeting would not be timely. The Convention, however, accepted the proposal of the Congregational Christian Churches for a mutual exchange of delegates to sit in each national body. The Convention rejected a proposal to set up required procedures in connection with the placement of ministers but urged that churches in calling ministers should consult with their respective state organizations.
FRIENDS, SOCIETY OF
Cooperating with the other historical pacifist churches, the leading Friends Meetings have united in the operation of a series of camps for conscientious objectors assigned to work of 'national importance' — chiefly forestry and soil improvements — under church direction. These camps have had the approval and helpful cooperation of the draft officers. Acting for all bodies of Friends, the American Friends Service Committee has also continued its distinguished war work in Europe for refugees and in the relief of prisoners. During the year considerable discussion over defense taxation arose in Friends circles. The Friends historically have not been opposed to ordinary taxation, but the diversion of so large a percentage of total taxes to war purposes is now felt to require a re-examination of this position. A proposal has been discussed to pay taxes in two checks; the one covering war expenditures to be paid under protest. The Five Year Meeting of Friends applied for membership in the World Council of Churches and the Friends Church in Japan entered the new United Church of Japan, though expressing concern over being included in a church which officially practices the outward observance of baptism and the Lord's Supper in opposition to the Friends' traditional position. In Friends' publications much concern has been expressed over the division of the group into numerous independent Meetings and Conferences; and the efforts of the Fellowship Council, as a uniting agency promoting new local organizations as 'United Meetings' rather than as members of the now separate Meetings, has found increasing approval.
JEWS
The most outstanding events in world Jewry throughout the year 1941 were the intensification of anti-Jewish decrees and restrictions in German-occupied France, as well as the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia, Greece, Russian-occupied Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Esthonia, which brought havoc and disruption to the Jewish communities of these lands.
The figures for a German-dominated Jewish population in Europe, before the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia in June, were as follows: Germany and Austria, 250,000; Poland, 2,000,000; The Netherlands, 200,000; Belgium, 100,000; Hungary, including Transylvania, 750,000; Rumania, 500,000; Bulgaria, 50,000; Greece, 75,000; Yugoslavia, 70,000; Czechoslovakia, 200,000; Norway, 2,500; Denmark, 7,200: Italy, 47,000; France, 240,000; French Morocco, 151,300; Algeria, 110,000; Tunisia, 60,000; Tangiers, 7,000.
A list, in chronological order and with the countries arranged alphabetically, of the most important events and occurrences throughout world Jewry during the year 1941, and of communal, organizational and welfare activities, follows:
Austria.
In the latter part of February, the Nazis in control of Austria (now called Ostmark) recommenced the large-scale deportation of Vienna Jews to the Lublin 'Jewish reservation' in Poland. In the week preceding Feb. 20, some 1,100 Jews were shipped off to Eastern Poland in transport trains, and a total of 9,000 more were collected in Vienna for such transportation. At that time it was reported that Vienna still had 50,000 Jews, mostly aged persons or children.
Belgium.
In January a great part of the Jewish population of Antwerp and of the districts of West and East Flanders were seized by German agents and sent to concentration camps established by the Nazis at Hasselt and in the province of Limbourg; their total number is believed to be 35,000. The ostensible purpose was to prevent the Belgian Jews from interfering with the Flemish Nationalist movement, reported to be strongest in those regions whence the deportations took place.
Nazi authorities in Belgium decreed the immediate expulsion of Jews from the diamond industry, and their replacement by Germans. All Jewish diamond workers or manufacturers in Antwerp, center of the industry, were ordered to deliver over their tools and instruments to the German authorities.
In early March, several thousand Polish Jews, resident in Belgium for as long as thirty years, were ordered deported back to the Nazi-occupied part of Poland. Shipped out of Belgium in cattle cars, they were permitted to take with them only fifty pounds of personal baggage.
Bulgaria.
In January the new Bulgarian Jew Law was gazetted, closely patterned after the model of the Nazis' Nuremberg Laws and showing clearly Nazi influence. Jews were restricted to their proportion of the population in participation in the economic and commercial life of Bulgaria (in 1941 there were 50,000 Jews in Bulgaria, out of a total of more than 6,000,000, or less than one per cent). To prevent 'control' by Jews, Jews are forbidden to exceed 49 per cent of participation in industrial and commercial businesses essential to the state. All 'international organizations' were ordered dissolved and banned; this necessitated the closing down of the Bulgarian Zionist organization.
China.
Early in April, there was a total of 10,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Eastern Europe is Shanghai totally dependent on relief. Some of these were reported to be stranded in Shanghai on their way from Soviet-occupied Poland and Lithuania to Palestine. In September, an ORT training school for Jewish refugees in China was established at Shanghai, under the supervision of a committee of Shanghai Jews. By early November, a total of 20,000 Jewish refugees was reported to be in Shanghai. Japanese officials in Shanghai were reported becoming increasingly anti-Semitic. Due to hard times, even the Chinese of Shanghai were alleged to be showing less favor to Jewish refugees.
Czechoslovakia.
Bohemia-Moravia.
Early in January, a new German decree required all Jews to sell their gold and silver plate and jewels to a public purchasing agency, and to deposit all their securities with the Devisenbank. Thus they were virtually stripped of their property by this decree, since the public purchasing agency granted them only a small fraction of the value of the things deposited.
All persons of Jewish descent were forbidden, in February, to fish, under penalty of forced labor service for two weeks.
In May, under extreme Nazi pressure, Jews were expelled from eighty-three villages and towns in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Then in early September they were forbidden to emigrate.
By the end of 1941, it was estimated that only 90,000 of the 200,000 Jews living in Bohemia and Moravia before March, 1939, were left in the so-called 'protectorate.'
Slovakia.
According to a February census, there were 88,951 Jews in Slovakia, living mainly in the cities and towns. The Slovakian government was at this time reported to be exerting constant pressure looking toward the forced emigration of as many of these Jews as possible. In March, Slovakian landlords were authorized to evict Jewish tenants upon three months' notice; legislation was passed concerning the eventual segregation of Jews from 'Aryans' in 'ghettos' until their emigration. In mid-April the puppet Slovakian government announced plans to establish four ghettos for Jews, in Bratislava (Press-burg), Nitra, Presov and Zilina. The Jewish community of Bratislava, with its 50,000 persons, was ordered to pay the cost of establishing this ghetto and transferring its members thither. German settlers and members of the Hlinka Guards were scheduled to settle in homes relinquished by the Jews outside of the ghettos. All Jews were ordered to wear distinguishing armbands.
In mid-September, all property owned by Jews in Slovakia was subjected to a 20 per cent capital levy, and Jewish-owned bank deposits to a 40 per cent levy. The Slovakian government reduced the daily rations of bread for Jews from 140 grams (four ounces) to seventy grams (two ounces). A shortage of building materials due to the war caused the suspension of the building of the Bratislava ghetto; Jews were ordered to repair old houses and factories and to build temporary barracks and huts to live in. All Jews were ordered expelled from towns of more than 5,000 population, including Bratislava, Pistian, Presov, Novomesto, Tenava, and Zilina, and twenty smaller towns, in all of which Jews have lived for many centuries. The dispossessed Jews were crowded into barracks formerly used to house gypsies; in Bratislava additional barracks were erected outside of the city limits.
All Jews above the age of six, and Jewish wives or husbands of non-Jews, were ordered to wear a Jew badge (the six-pointed star, called also Magen David, or 'Shield of David').
Dominican Republic.
Early in January, Generalissimo Rafael L. Trujillo, former president of the Dominican Republic, increased his 1940 gift to the Sosua colony of the Dominican Republic Settlement Association by presenting it with an additional tract of 50,000 acres contiguous to the present colony. He also presented it with a mountain preserve which is to be used as a rest and recreation center for the colonists. The new colony property, in Puerta Plata Province at the northeastern end of the island, some fifty miles from Sosua, is 3,000 feet above sea level, has several hundred acres suitable for summer vacation and convalescent purposes, and has twenty-four buildings at present. One thousand additional Jewish and non-Jewish persons in Europe were, in January, selected for settlement during 1941 in Sosua.
Finland.
Due to Finland's joining in the war against Russia on the side of Germany in July, German Nazi influence penetrated into the Finnish army. Thus, in mid-July, by military decree, the Finnish ministry of war ordered all Jewish officers and soldiers placed on the inactive list (i.e. retired from active service); all Finnish Jewish soldiers were ordered retired from the Finnish-Russian border. In September, by decree of the government of Finland, under pressure of the German Military Command, all Jews were prohibited to go to Viipuri or to any other towns in the district recovered from Soviet Russia since July, 1941.
France.
In mid-January, by a new decree of the Vichy government, the German high command, in charge of Occupied France, in cooperation with French officials, began the complete elimination of Jews from trade and business. All Jewish-owned business enterprises, estimated to number 11,000, were ordered sold to 'Aryan' owners; 5,000 of these were small shops owned by Jews in Paris and the Paris region. No exceptions were made in the case of firms owned or controlled by American Jews.
Late in March, the anti-Semitic general Xavier Vallat, secretary of the Veterans' Organizations of France, was appointed by the Vichy Council of Ministers to the post of general commissioner in charge of 'Jewish questions,' to administer the new anti-Semitic Vichy law barring French Jews from all journalistic, educational, military and governmental positions. The Paris newspapers conducted a severe campaign against Jews in March and April. A compulsory ghetto was set up in Paris by the Nazi authorities, to be supported by a 10 per cent tax imposed on Parisian Jews based on the amount of their tax paid to the state. By decree of the Nazi military authorities, the Nuremberg Laws were extended to apply to all Jews in Occupied France.
In mid-May, the Vichy government, disclaiming persecution of Jews, announced its forthcoming intention of classifying them as aliens, with few exceptions, and therefore subject to a new statute restricting their rights and privileges. Some 5,000 foreign Jews between the ages of 17 and 40 were arrested by police in Paris and sent to concentration camps near Orléans for forced labor on public projects. The anti-Jewish new laws planned in May were enacted in June (June 22, 1941), replacing those of Oct. 3, 1940, and applicable in Occupied France.
All Jews were, late in June, ordered to leave Vichy within one week. Relief institutions were crowded with Jews barred from many occupations.
Late in August, Jewish Commissioner Xavier Vallat was authorized to appoint 'Aryan' administrators for all Jewish-owned businesses, real estate, buildings and property (except homes) throughout France.
Germany.
In February 1941, by official Nazi figures, the number of Jews still remaining in Germany was set at 200,000 for Germany proper, 50,000 in Austria, and 70,000 in the German Nazi 'protectorate' of Bohemia-Moravia. Danzig and West Prussia were declared to be virtually 'Judenrein' (free of Jews). Due to shortage of labor in the course of the second World War, many German Jews, men and women, were forced to work, for normal wages, in factories and munitions plants from which they had previously been excluded as workers. They were forbidden all contact with 'Aryan' workers. German Jews, workers included, were reported suffering severely from lack of clothing and food, being denied clothing, shoe or coal permit cards and not being permitted to have their shoes repaired. Thousands of Jews from Germany and Austria were shipped in sealed trains across the French border and forced to settle in unoccupied France, after being stripped of practically all their belongings, and with little or no food and clothing. Most of these deportees were old men, old women and children.
In early September, due to the continuing labor shortage in the Reich, all Jews between 18 and 45 years of age were forbidden to emigrate; a ruling issued in the previous month had forbidden the emigration of only Jewish men between those ages. All Jews six years of age and over were ordered to wear the Magen David in yellow cloth on their coats, with the word Jude (Jew) sewed on in black.
A total of 55,000 Jews from Berlin were ordered deported to Nazi-occupied Poland. In late October, 48,000 Jews from Prague and many additional thousands from the rest of Bohemia and Moravia were sent to Poland.
Greece.
In late April, the Jews of Macedonia, a Greek province, were subjected to a reign of terror headed by the Nazi-paid terrorist Ivan Mihailoff, whose Black Cross organization collected 'collective fines' from small Jewish communities for 'protection,' as well as from Jewish business houses; many of the latter were looted or robbed of much of their goods.
Hungary.
On July 2, the House of Deputies. voting a bill designed 'to protect the Magyar race,' forbade all marriages between Jews and other groups of the population. Some 22,000 Jews living in the towns on the Soviet border adjacent to Hungary were removed from their homes during July and sent into the interior. Also 12,000 Polish Jews, originally from Polish territory seized by Russia in 1939 and now controlled by the Nazi-Hungarian forces, were arrested. A new decree ordered all Jews of Hungary from 20 to 40 years of age to report for forced labor on roads and fortifications near the Russian border. Anti-Jewish agitation linking Jews with Communism became so violent that throughout Hungary Jews ceased appearing on streets and in public places, and in Budapest and other cities synagogues were closed for fear of attacks. Late in July the government began expelling foreign Jews.
Italy.
Early in June, it was estimated that fully three-fourths of the Jews of Italy were totally unemployed, due to previous Italian anti-Jewish legislation. The government favored emigration of Jews, few of whom, however, were able to leave because of the war. The Italian government, taking a page from the Nazis' notebook, arrested some 2,600 alien Jews and interned them in concentration camps; 1,000 other Jews, Italian-born, were taken into 'protective custody' and interned in special camps by the authorities.
In late October, the anti-Semitic II Regime Fascista urged the 'destruction of all Italian Jews, including all those who have received preferential treatment, under the anti-Jewish laws, as a danger to the internal front.' At that time the Jews in Italy, by official government statement, totaled 39,444 with Italian citizenship and 3,674 with foreign citizenship; this total was less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of the Italian population of 45,303,000.
Lithuania.
The German invasion of Soviet Russia and Poland, on June 22, 1941, brought also the Jews of Soviet Lithuania, numbering some 200,000, into the path of the second World War. Vilna and Kovno were occupied by the Nazi armies in July; the large Jewish populations there were threatened with starvation. At Vilna the huge library of the Yiddish Scientific Institute was ransacked by the Nazis; large stacks of manuscripts and books were shipped off to Germany, for inclusion in the files of the Bureau for the Investigation of Jewish Affairs there. Many Jews fled from Lithuania to the interior of Russia. A total of 4,000 Jews were murdered by Nazis in Kovno, Shavli, and Vilna and in other smaller Lithuanian cities after the Nazi occupation in July. The Nazis were reported to have organized these massacres of Jews as 'reprisals' for 'assistance given by Jews to the Russian troops.' Ten thousand Lithuanian Jews were arrested by the Nazis and were still kept in prisons at the end of the year.
Netherlands.
The first step in the 'Aryanization' of Jewish-owned businesses in Holland was taken by Seyss-Inquart in mid-March when he issued a decree that henceforth his consent was required for the sale or leasing of any Jewish-owned business. The decree also authorized Seyss-Inquart to appoint business administrators to manage and sell Jewish businesses, and to forbid Jews to conduct businesses. Late in March, a fine of 5,000,000 guilders was imposed upon the Amsterdam Jews by the Nazi officials in The Netherlands as their share of the 15,000,000-guilder fine imposed on the inhabitants of Amsterdam for the anti-Nazi demonstrations which occurred there earlier in the month. Nazi officials declared that Jews had aided in the instigation of these riots and strikes. They were given only until May 1 to pay their share of the fine.
For any change in residence, Jews were required to secure official permits. All Dutch newspapers were forbidden by the Nazi authorities to publish the lists of Dutch Jews who died in Nazi concentration camps there, and all anti-Jewish regulations enforced against Jews in Germany proper were ordered enforced against the Netherlands Jews.
By Dec. 1, 1941, between 15,000 and 20,000 Jewishowned businesses in The Netherlands had been 'Aryanized' (i.e. taken away from their Jewish owners by force and without compensation, and transferred to Nazi control).
Norway.
Early in March, an official 'Aryan Paragraph' intended to exclude Norwegian Jews from governmental and higher educational positions was introduced by the Quisling government. All 'non-Aryans' (Jews) were to be denied Norwegian citizenship. The purpose of these new laws, except spite, was not apparent, since the Jewish population of Norway was only 1,400 out of a total population of about 2,900,000, or less than one-half of 1 per cent.
Palestine.
At a meeting of the Emergency Tax Campaign in Jerusalem in early January, the sum of 24,000 pounds was pledged by the Jewish community of Palestine every month as a contribution to the British war effort and for Palestine defense, under the auspices of the Vaad Leumi (Jewish National Council).
In January, a new conference of 1,200 Arab and Jewish citrus fruit growers was held and the growers elected a deputation of Arabs and Jews to ask the British High Commissioner. Sir Harold MacMichael, to reduce taxation on citrus plantations, halt the forced foreclosure and sale of mortgaged citrus groves, pass laws to protect owners of citrus grove plantations from legal procedure in case of arrears of debt, and purchase from growers at a fixed price the entire citrus crop. In early April the government published its plan to aid the citrus growers.
An historic occasion, late in February, was the meeting of Arab and Jewish journalists at Tel-Aviv for the discussion of increased cooperation between Arabs and Jews in all Palestinian problems. This was the first such meeting in the history of Palestine.
For the first time since the days of the Bible, when a tithe (10 per cent tax) was imposed by Biblical law on the products of the soil, Palestinian individuals and companies were, late in March, compelled to begin the payment of an income tax on their 1940 earnings, for war purposes. The tax was set at 10 per cent on the income of all individuals and companies, and was opposed by Jews and Arabs alike, by the Jews especially on the ground that the equivalent of the proposed income tax was already being paid by all Jews in Palestine in the form of an emergency tax for the period of the war, as well as of a tax on Jewish-owned property.
According to reports which reached the United States in early November, Arab and Jewish leaders agreed on the following points to be put into force after the second World War is over, as guarantees of peace between the two groups: complete equality between Jews and Arabs as regards rights in Palestine; these were to include representation in the parliament to be formed, and equality as regards language and numerical strength; Jewish immigration to be permitted within the economic ability of the country to absorb the new immigrants until, by 1950 or shortly thereafter, the Jews equaled the Arabs in number; the formation of a federation of nearby countries, in which Palestine was to occupy a special place, with the national constitution as a basis; immigration of Jews into other federated countries in specified amounts; the independence of all these federated lands.
Poland.
Early in January, the new Warsaw ghetto for Jews began to be administered by a Jewish Community Council, with 1,000 Jewish 'policemen' guarding the section, which was enclosed by an eight-foot wall. Entrance of 'Aryans' into the Warsaw ghetto was discouraged. That same month, the Joint Distribution Committee of America was assisting at least 600,000 destitute Polish Jews.
In February, according to reports issued by the Polish Information Center of New York, high-rising prices and starvation rations imposed by the Nazis were causing serious suffering among the Jews of Poland. Hundreds of sick and half-starved Jews were seized by Nazi police and expelled from their homes in Nazi-occupied Poland into the already crowded Warsaw ghetto. By Feb. 15, a total of 400,000 Jews were reported living in the Warsaw ghetto. By mid-April five Polish ghettos were reported complete, i.e., Warsaw, Radom, Kielce, Lublin, and Cracow.
Due to the need of Nazi authorities to care for soldiers wounded in the Russian campaign, all Jewishowned hospitals in Nazi Poland were confiscated by the Nazi military authorities, except those within the Jewish ghettos. By mid-July, more than 60,000 of the 70,000 Jews of Cracow had been immured in the Jewish ghettos of Warsaw and other cities. Jewish doctors were drafted at Warsaw, Lublin and other parts of Poland for treating the great number of wounded German troops.
The Jewish community of the Warsaw ghetto spent the sum of 8,000,000 zlotys a month for social welfare, hospital and relief work, and for payment for forced labor and for equipment. In August the number of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto was declared, by a census taken by the Nazis, to be 401,800.
Rumania.
Early in January, only 175,000 Jews remained in Rumania out of the total of more than 700,000 there before the Russian occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina in June, 1940. Three hundred thousand Bessarabian Jews became Russian subjects; 150,000 became Hungarian subjects when Northern Transylvania was returned to Hungary in September 1940, and 65,000 additional Jews were reported to have fled to Soviet Bessarabia by January 1941, and 10,000 more to Palestine, Turkey and Greece. The great mass of these 175,000 Jews were reported reduced to virtual beggary. Iron Guardist anti-Jewish decrees and terrorism were on the increase. Jewish cemeteries in and near Bucharest were desecrated by Iron Guardist ghouls.
The revolt of the Iron Guard extremists is reported to have caused the death of at least 2,000 Jews, half of them in Bucharest. Many were burned alive in their homes by Iron Guardists, who first looted the houses.
In August, 50,000 Rumanian Jews were compelled to join forced labor gangs in order to repair and rebuild roads, buildings and the like destroyed by Russian troops as they retreated from Bessarabia. The Rumanian government appointed a Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, along approved Nazi lines; the anti-Semitic under-secretary of state, Danulescu, appointed to this post, was 'to regulate the Jewish question.'
In October, many young Jewish girls and women were seized by Rumanian police or Nazi officials and conveyed to Nazi military brothels conducted by the Nazified Rumanian government, or were enticed into them under the pretext that they were being called for compulsory labor service or as nurses in the hospitals.
Soviet Russia.
In early May, the last synagogue remaining to the Jews in Homel, White Russia, was seized by the Soviet officials for conversion into the headquarters of the local soviet. Synagogues in Soviet-occupied Poland and in former Bucovina and Bessarabia were subjected to high taxation by decree. In towns of 5,000 or more population, the tax was to be 5,000 rubles annually; in towns with 10,000 population, 10,000 rubles; 15,000 rubles in towns of from 10,000 to 20,000 inhabitants, and 25,000 rubles in towns of from 20,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, with still higher taxes in larger cities. Rabbis were declared subject to an annual personal tax of from 1,000 to 5,000 rubles, according to salary or size of congregation.
In the latter part of August, twenty-six prominent Russian Jewish leaders broadcast an appeal to Jews throughout Russia and the world to fight against Nazi Fascism with all their means. Three important signers of this appeal were the motion picture director Sergei Eisenstein, the novelist Ilya Ehrenburg, and the architect Boris M. Iofan.
