From reliable authority in Berlin the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned that on the eve of the Madison Square Garden mass-meeting of protest in New York, a series of wholesale arrests of Jewish representatives throughout the Reich was conducted. These men were dragged from their beds and compelled to sign denials of persecution reports. Those refusing to do so, in many cases were detained and sent to the “brown houses” where they were unmercifully beaten.
### among the sig### tories to one of the “unforced” Jewish statements denying persecutions, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learns, was a rabbi who had himself been previously attacked in the street and had undergone the indignity and suffering of having his beard partly torn off. In fact, he still bore signs of maltreatment when he signed the statement.
Other bearded rabbis have also been attacked in the streets. Nazi tormentors have developed a certain technique in this, it is learned. Two men hold the victim while a third husky Nazi tears at the beard.
Among those on whom application of this technique was made are Rabbi Klein, of the Orthodox Gemeinde, who was seized on Friedrichstrasse. He was beaten up and his beard was torn off, but the beardless rabbi is now afraid to admit that he even wore a beard.
Rabbi Galiner was arrested in his home on April 1 and taken to the Nazi barracks on Papestrasse. There he was beaten and compelled to exercise for the amusement of the storm troopers until he fainted. He was revived and forced to continue his exercises until he fainted again, whereupon a physician was hurriedly summoned and pronounced him dead. He was then thrown into the dustbin in the courtyard of the barracks, where he was later found by a Jewish friend who courageously ventured into domains sacred to the Nazis. Rabbi Galiner was taken to his home, where he still is seriously ill as the aftermath of his treatment at Nazi hands.
BODY DELIVERED IN SACK
Jews who disappeared after arrest by the Nazis include Faust Schleger, whose body has not yet been discovered, and the 23-year-old Jewish journalist named Kroel, who was employed on the “Achtuhr Abendblatt,” who was arrested March 15. Kroel’s body was subsequently identified in the Morgue by his mother, who was threatened with arrest when she demanded a statement from the police. The body was surrendered to the mother in a carefully bound sack which Nazis took steps to see was not examined before burial.
On March 12, three Jewish corpses were brought to the Weisensee Cemetery, where the superintendent, Somberski, was threatened with serious consequences unless the bodies were secretly buried at once. When this fact became known, Somberski was forced to sign a denial. Since that time no more Jewish bodies have been brought to the cemetery.
A special Wehrkommission, known as Wecke, analagous to the post-revolutionary Cheka in Russia, is operating as part of the political police headed by the Nazi, Diels, who is under the direct orders of Captain Hermann Goering, chief Hitler lieutenant. The Wecke functions as a “strong-arm squad” charged with re-
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.
