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Reich Jewry Apprehensive over Incident

November 8, 1938
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German Jewry was seized tonight with a deep apprehension after publication in newspapers of the incident involving the attack on a german embassy official by a Polish Jewish youth.

Der Angriff, organ of prof-agenda minister paul joseph Goebbels, featured the news under the front-page streamer headline: “world Jewish revolver attack in german embassy in paris.”

The Nachtausgabe alone printed an editorial, stating that such incidents must inevitably show France the necessity of sharpening measures against the Jewish “criminal rabble” with which she has permitted herself to be flooded.

(Havas News Agency quoted the Nachtausgabe as asserting that “expulsion of all suspect and unclean elements” was the only way to prevent such acts, adding that “the attack against Secretary von Rath certainly will result in particular prudence regarding the admission of doubtful persons to the german embassy in paris.)

The official account of the incident did not mention the deportation of Polish Jews from Germany as the motive for the attack. It quoted the assailant as admitting that he desired to avenge his racial comrades.

Meanwhile, tension among Polish Jews in Germany is increasing daily as the Warsaw Berlin parleys concerning their future status, precipitated by the mass expulsions to Poland last week, are not yet producing results.

A few Polish Jews holding valid passports are preparing to join their deported relatives in Poland. Property left in Germany so far is generally intact, with relatives taking care of businesses while apartments in provincial towns have been sealed by the police pending their occupants’ return or permission to remove furniture and other possessions.

Some quarters believe that Germany will agree not to repeat the wholesale deportations, but will seek to attain its objective by an intensified campaign against polish and “stateless” Jews.

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