Informed opinion here fails to see anything constructive in today’s officially-inspired announcement by the German News Agency (D.N.B.) regarding future Jewish emigration. The best that can be said for it is that it does not conflict with plans the Reich Government is reportedly considering for the harnessing of the emigration problem to the German trade drive.
Commenting on the rich-help-the-poor policy of Jewish emigration in Austria, which the announcement mentions, informed sources point out that this has nothing to do with the transfer question. Rich Jews are taxed two to five per cent of their fortunes before they are granted passports. This money is not permitted to leave the country and is used, according to the Gestapo, to pay for transportation and sometimes other necessities for poor emigrants, but only in exceptional cases are the emigrants granted landing money or other foreign exchange from the fund.
If the Nazis, in referring to aid by foreign Jews in solving the transfer problem, mean that world Jewry is asked to put funds at the disposal of the emigrating Jews, there is nothing new in this idea since foreign Jews for years have spent millions in aiding penniless emigrants. If, however, the German Government proposes to use the funds made available by foreign Jews in pursuit of its own export drive, a possible solution can be fund only if supported by other nations.
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