Deputy Dr. Julius Reisz, one of the Jewish Deputies in Czocho-Slovakia, speaking here with the J.T.A. representative of the blood libel affair in Czecho-Slovakia, said that it would not be a difficult thing to get the Government to quash the proceedings. But the Jewish population and the Jewish Parliamentary representatives, he went on, do not wish the blood libel affair to end in such a nebulous manner. The Jews are interested in having the blood-libel disproved by the ordinary method of public legal procedure.
The present Minister of Justice, he said, is a member of the Social Democratic Party and is himself a Jew, and because he is a Jew he is anxious, and justly so, that it should not be said that he is interfering in a trial of this nature. Justice is independent of the Government. If the Minister of Justice or any other higher authority were to give the slightest hint to the State Prosecutor how they should act, it would be immediately alleged on the antisemitic side that there is really something in’ the blood libel, since it is necessary for a Jewish Minister or for the State to exercise pressure to get it withdrawn. It is for this reason that the law court and the State Attorney are being given perhaps even too much lattitude, leaving them a completely free hand, and that is why the affair has been dragging almost for two years. But if it drags much longer, and it seems that the court is not bringing it to an end, the Government will certainly have to tell the State Prosecutor that every trial must finish some time, and that much bigger trials have not dragged for years in the court of first instance.
The Jewish Parliamentary Deputies will not allow a few officials who have compromised themselves by bringing up the libel to drag the case now from year to year to prevent the court finding that the entire accusation was an invention. But we look to the trial to clear Jews of the absurd blood libel and to demonstrate again to the world at large the baselessness of this accusation against us.
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.
