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Stenographic Report of a Portion of the Interministerial Meeting at the Reich Aviation Ministry [Reichsluftfahrtministerium] (November 12, 1938)

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As another means of getting the Jews out, measure for Emigration ought to be taken in the rest of the Reich for the next 8 to 10 years. The highest number of Jews we can possibly get out during one year is 8,000 to 10,000. Therefore, a great number of Jews will remain. Because of the Aryanizing and other restrictions Jewry will become unemployed. The remaining Jews gradually become proletarians. Therefore, I shall have to take steps to isolate the Jew so he won’t enter into the German normal routine of life. On the other hand, I shall have to restrict the Jew to a small circle of consumers, but I shall have to permit certain activities within professions; lawyers, doctors, barbers, etc. This question shall also have to be examined.

As for the isolation, I’d like to make a few proposals regarding police measures which are important also because of their psychological effect on public opinion. For example, who is Jewish according to the Nurnberg laws, shall have to wear a certain insignia. That is a possibility which shall facilitate many other things. I don’t see any danger of excuses, and it shall make our relationship with the foreign Jew easier.

Goering: A uniform!

Heydrich: An insignia. This way we could also put an end to it that the foreign Jews who don’t look different from ours, are being molested.

Goering: But, my dear Heydrich, you won’t be able to avoid the creation of ghettos on a very large scale, in all the cities. They shall have to be created.

Heydrich: As for the question of ghettos, I’d like to make my position clear right away. From the point of view of the police, I don’t think a ghetto in the form of completely segregated districts where only Jews would live, can be put up. We could not control a ghetto where the Jews congregate amidst the whole Jewish people. It would remain the permanent hideout for criminals and also for epidemics and the like. We don’t want to let the Jew live in the same house with the German population; but today the German population, their blocks or houses, force the Jew to behave himself. The control of the Jew through the watchful eye of the whole population is better than having him by the thousands in a district where I cannot properly establish a control over his daily life through uniformed agents.

Goering: We’d only have to forbid long-distance calls.

Heydrich: Still I could not completely stop the Jews from communicating out of their districts.

Goering: And in towns all of their own?

Heydrich: If I could put them into towns entirely their own, yes. But then these towns would be such a heaven for criminals of all sorts that they would be a terrific danger. I’d take different steps. I’d restrict the movement of the Jews and would say: In Munich, the governmental district and the district . . .

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