November 12: ON THIS DAY in 1938, Nazis bar all trades to Jews
ON THIS DAY IN 1918, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “With the American Army in France, Monday, November 11 (Night) (AP) – Hostilities along the American front ended with a crash of cannon. The early forenoon had been marked by a falling off in fire all along the line, but an increasing bombardment from the retreating Germans at certain points stimulated the Americans to a quick retort. From their positions north of Stenay to Southeast of the town, the Americans began to bombard fixed targets. The firing reached a volume at times almost equivalent to a barrage. Two minutes before 11 o’clock, the firing dwindled, the last shells shrieking over no man’s land precisely on time. There was little celebration on the front line, and American routine was scarcely disturbed over the cessation of fighting. In the areas behind the battle zone, there were celebrations today on all sides. Here and there, there were little outbursts of cheering, but even those instances were not on the immediate front.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1938, the Eagle reported, “Berlin (AP) — Jews today were assessed 1,000,000,000 marks ($400,000,000) as a penalty for the murder of Ernst vom Rath, German diplomat in Paris, it was announced officially. Field Marshal Hermann Wilhelm Goering, as director of Germany’s four-year plan, issued a decree, effective next Jan. 1, prohibiting Jews from conducting retail businesses, mail order and commission houses and independent handicraft enterprises. Goering’s decree further banned Jews from heading any industrial or commercial concern by forbidding them to hold the position of ‘betriebsfuehrer,’ which every factory or similar undertaking must have under the national labor law. At the same time, semi-official sources said that 1,600 Jews had been arrested in Berlin alone. (The United Press estimated 6,000 Jews arrested in Berlin.) These sources said it was impossible to estimate how many other Jews had been seized in the rest of Germany since the killing of vom Rath, secretary of the German embassy in Paris, which incited nationwide burnings of synagogues and destruction of Jewish stores Thursday.”