The police authorities have asked all synagogue authorities to warn their congregations that no Jews should go to the River Spree to-day to perform the Tashlik rite of reciting penitential prayers on New Year’s Day beside a running stream, because it was feared that the Hitlerists would make a fresh attack there.
The police are making big preparations for Kol Nidre night, when the Hitlerists, who generally choose nighttime for their attacks, are expected to organise a new big anti-Jewish offensive.
The Jews of Berlin are terribly downcast and anxious over yesterday’s attacks, and the worshippers in the synagogues went about to-day with very serious faces. During the breaks in the service nobody went to stand outside the synagogue doors in case they might be molested by Hitlerists, and groups of young Jews stood on guard in the neighbourhood of the synagogues, especially in the Jewish quarter about the Grenadier Strasse, to act as a self-defence, in case there was a repetition of last night’s outbreak.
The ministers in all cases devoted their sermons to the present tragedy of German Jewry, exposed not only to the general economic misery of the whole country, but also to the special fury directed by the Hitlerists against the Jews, emphasising that despite everything, economically broken as they are, the Jews are determined, nevertheless, to play their part in the restoration work both of German Jewry and of Germany as a whole.
A representative of the J.T.A. has to-day been visiting the Jewish injured, finding many of them with serious head and body wounds, and so bandaged that they look like mummies, Among these is Alexander Rosenfeld, the Vice-President of the Maccabee Jewish Athletic and Sports World Organisation.
All the victims agree in declaring that the hordes of armed Hitlerists which rushed on them were acting under definite orders, officered by group commanders, working in conjunction with each other, and maintaining contact with a central command.
Officials of the Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith corroborate their evidence that there was a systematic organised movement. Armed youths from the Hitlerist Storm Troop Barracks blocked all streets leading from the Fasanen Street Synagogue, so that all Jews coming out of the synagogue were caught in a trap.
The Board of the Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith has adopted a resolution, condemning the desecration of the Rosh Hashanah Festival and the brutal cudgelling of peaceful Jewish men and women. The resolution goes on to direct the attention of the Government to the growing pogromist agitation conducted by the Hitlerist leaders, and recalls the constant warnings which the Central Union has addressed to the Government, which, unfortunately, paid no heed, considering them exaggerations. We hope that the Government will now realise the seriousness of the position. it says, for we feel that last night’s outbreak is the rehearsal for a real pogrom. The Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, it proceeds, hopes, therefore, that the Government will now take the necessary action and will instruct the police to remove the ringleaders of this agitation, and thus prevent the outbreak of a pogrom on a scale that will shock the world.
The Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith hopes, the resolution concludes, that all responsible citizens will join together against the Hitlerist infamy, so that foreign public opinion should see that the German people as such condemn pogroms.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
