As described in Thoughts from The Frontier: Jacob Lestschinsky, Demographer and Scholar, this essay – “Jews in Baltic Lands”, from August of 1938 – is the Third of Lestschinsky’s six writings published in the Jewish Frontier from the late 1930s through 1948.
The previous essays are:
The Jews of Central Europe – June, 1938
The Fate of Six Million – July, 1938
The subsequent essays are:
In Fascist Rumania – September, 1938
Terror in Polish Universities – April, 1939
Jewish Expressions in the U.S.S.R. – December, 1948
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Calmly, without tumult and in a “civilized” manner
the Jews were brought to a condition
where emigration offers the only escape from their predicament.
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Jews in Baltic Lands
August, 1938
LATVIA OFFERS an excellent example of how a Jewish community may be destroyed without tumult and violence, without breaking heads and smashing windows and even without the hysteria of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic agitation is practically forbidden in Latvia. The supreme and only ruler of this small country is acquainted with that law and he can manipulate it in such a manner as to avoid entirely the “glamour” of anti-Semitic agitation.
Ninety-thousand Jews live in Latvia today and they comprise five per cent of the total population. In 1897 there were 142 thousand Jews in Latvia and they made up 7 ½ per cent of the inhabitants. As recently as 1938 there were 95 thousand Jews in the country and their number is constantly diminishing. The ruling Latvian majority is growing at the expense of the Jews and of other national minorities. Whereas the Latvians constituted only 68% of the population before the war and they were almost exclusively engaged in agriculture, they comprise 76% of the population today and they form the majority in many cities. Two causes contributed to this shift in the population: the greater natural increase among the Latvians as compared to that of the Jews and the Germans and the emigration of Jews from the country. The percentage of Jews in the cities is also decreasing. Before the war they accounted for 40% of the population in Dwinsk; in 1925, 31%; in 1935 only 24%. This change in Dwinsk is characteristic of the trend in other cities.
In the pre-war years, the cites were the backbone of Jewish economic and cultural life in Latvia because in many of these they were the largest single national group. In Dwinsk, for example, the non-Jewish 60% of the population was composed of four different nationalities: Russians, Latvian, Poles and Lithuanians. Under a democratic regime, such as was contemplated before the war, the Jews would have had a majority in the city administration. But reality did not concede form to plan. The Latvians are the sole rulers and it is their policy to displace the national minorities.
Latvia instituted a large-scale agrarian reform program. Of the three million hectares (1 hectare is 10,000 sq. meters) which were previously in the possession of large German landowners, two million were sub-divided among the Latvian peasants. In time it became clear, however, that the peasants who received land and financial assistance, vocational school and aid in marketing their produce, these same peasants who profited from the reform measures became the stronghold of reaction and the supporters of an unbridled chauvinist policy. The sons of those well to do peasants attend the universities. Relatively there are today more university students in Latvia than there are in England. The new generation of educated peasants’ sons swarmed into all the urban trades and professions. With peasant stubbornness and lack of regard they began to displace the national minorities. Over 40% of the student body in Latvia consists of peasants’ sons. The government grants them subsidies and positions even before they are graduated. This phenomenon of the spread of education among the farming population could have been greeted as desirable if the newly educated Latvians had recognized the right of other nationalities to earn a livelihood.
The process of displacing Jews from the professions began even before the triumph of fascism in Latvia. Under Czarist rule there were no Jewish officials in the country. During the honeymoon of the Latvian republic, a few scores of Jews were given official positions for the reason that there were not enough Latvians capable of filling the posts. Later the Jewish officials were discharged. Among the 30 thousand government officials in Latvia, there were never more than 150 Jews. Today there is not a single Jewish official in the country. Even during the years 1930-1933 no Jewish doctor could be employed in the government hospitals and clinics. With the rise of the dictatorship, the majority of those Jews who still had posts were dismissed and only a few indispensable specialists were retained.
The trend towards commercial callings was increasing as a natural process but the dictatorship accelerated it by means of special privileges for the Latvian businessmen and by placing hindrances in the path of the Jewish traders. The first step of the government was to take over the trade in agricultural produce. This measure affected all those who were engaged in this trade. Not only the Jewish exporters but also the small Jewish grain dealers in the small towns and the employees of the export firms were adversely affected. The government agencies which conducted the trade in agricultural produce did not employ even a single Jew. In 1937 the government paid 150 million Lat to farmers for their produce. The total Latvian exports of that year amounted to 261 million Lat. Nearly all the agricultural exports were handled by the government, and yet this branch of trade was previously almost entirely in the hands of Jews. When the government assumes control of any branch of trade, the laborers in that branch are affected even more than the traders and manufacturers. The government refrains from employing Jews even in the unskilled labor of loading and hauling. Many Jews in Latvia heretofore derived their sustenance from such unskilled labor.
The credit institutions are now almost entirely in the hands of the government. In 1936 it granted loans to the extent of 405 million Lat, 76% of the total credit extended in the country in that year. Latvian merchants and manufacturers receive loans at lower interest rates and with less collateral than is required of Jewish entrepreneurs.
But the process of industrialization is still proceeding at a slow pace among the Latvians. They lack the necessary training, the minimum capital outlay and the initiative which this new field of enterprise requires. The government therefore began to take over the factories. The administration of Ulmanis passed a number of laws which enable it to take over any industrial establishment. Latvian law decrees that the government may consider any industrial establishment to be sufficiently important for the interests of the state to give it the right of buying it. In 1936-37 this law was applied to take over a number of Jewish owned factories which also employed Jewish laborers. During these two years, plants manufacturing wagons, machines, cigarettes, chocolate and beer were taken over. The Jewish owned textile plant “Riga-Willa” and three other factories were also recently acquired by the government which thus deprives the Jews of a branch of industry which they founded and developed in independent Latvia.
Five years ago, when it became difficult for young Jews to gain admittance to the university and to look forward to a career in the professions, many of them tuned to physical labor. In the textile factory in Riga I met scores of Jewish workers many of whom were graduated from high schools. During the past five years, this trend toward physical labor has become even more accentuated since prospects in commerce and in the professions have become even poorer than they were. Now the Latvian government denies Jewish youth even this outlet. One can forsee that the Jewish laborers as well as the Jewish officials and technically skilled employees will be dismissed soon. The economic policies of the government and its actions in the past clearly indicate such a course.
According to recent information the Latvian government is about to inaugurate the following industrial enterprises: a textile plant at an investment of eight million Lat; lumber and coke plants for four million Lat; peat works for 3 ½ million Lat; fish distributing depots for 2 million Lat and a bakery for 600 thousand Lat. The appetite grows with the eating. The more deeply the government becomes involved in commercial and industrial ventures, the greater is its desire to control additional economic fields. In the near future private enterprise may be displaced entirely. We would not feel concerned for the private Jewish entrepreneur it the actions of the government were not of such a nationalist nature. In practice it takes everything out of the hands of the national minorities and hands it to the Latvians. Without exaggeration we may say that over half the trade and industry in Latvia is now in the hands of the government and this process is still proceeding at an increasing pace. While the Jewish industrialists and businessmen receive compensation from the government for their plants, the Jewish workers and intellectuals remain without work and without any prospects for the future.
It is therefore not surprising that the Jews of this small country, where no discriminatory laws exist and where, in theory, the Jews enjoy equal rights, are panicky and frantic. Jewish youth is afraid lest the government appropriate a few plants and dismisses them from their jobs.
We did not analyze the cooperatives in Latvia which are supported by the government with credit, special privileges and freedom from taxation. Often one receives the impression that the cooperatives are no more than government stores operated by government officials. No independent activity on the part of the people is noticeable in this field.
Since the political situation in the country is stagnant and there are no prospects for political changes, the Jewish citizens are despairing. Their only hope lies in emigration. It is the dream of every Jew and especially of the youth to emigrate, but where?
Latvia is a small country with a population of less than two million. It is easy to gain control of the economy of the land and this explains the rapid and successful action of the government. The Latvians are a cultured and capable people who adapt themselves rapidly to new trades. They learned much from the Germans when they were subjected to them. Jewish merchants never constituted more than one third of the businessmen in the country. Their share in the industry was even smaller. In parts of the country, as in Riga, there was a “pale of settlement” for Jews before the war. During the twenty years of Latvian independence there came into existence large groups of educated and technically trained people. As a result it was very easy to displace the Jews from their economic positions without expressly legislating against them. Calmly, without tumult and in a “civilized” manner the Jews were brought to a condition where emigration offers the only escape from their predicament.
This is the third of a series of article on the situation of the Jews in the central European countries.