Despite the promise of Germany given at the meeting of the International Olympics Committee at Vienna that German Jews would be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games to be held in Berlin in 1936, Der Stuermer, newspaper of Julius Streicher, Nazi leader who organized the anti-Jewish boycott and more recently supervised the arrest of 300 Jews in the city of Nueremberg, today came out with a pointed declaration that there is no place for Jews in German sports.
The decision of the Olympic Games Committee to hold the games in Germany despite vigorous opposition to this move, was conditioned on the promise of the German representatives that German Jews would be permitted to participate in the games unmolested.
JEWISH LEADER SUICIDE
Referring to the suicide yesterday at Saanstaat, Wurtemberg, of Fritz Rosenfelder, Jewish leader, who organized the local sports club, Streicher’s newspaper declared: “It is self-evident why Rosenfelder was expelled from the sports club. We need waste no words there. Jews are Jews and there is no place for them in German sports. Germany is the Fatherland of Germans, not of the Jews, and the Germans have the right to do what they wish in their own country.”
Rosenfelder’s suicide followed his summary expulsion from the club which he founded and directed for many years. He left a letter behind him which is characteristic of the feelings of the average Jew of Germany at the present day. The letter was addressed to members of the club.
LEAVING WITH NO HATRED
“My dear friends,” Rosenfelder wrote, “herewith are my last greetings. No German Jew can conscientiously agree to be considered a traitor to a movement which Jews hoped would bring salvation to nationalistic Germany. I am leaving with no hatred. My only wish is that Germany should be restored to reason.
“Since I am outlawed from my work, I am taking my life voluntarily in an effort to show my Christian friends how we Jews now feel about Germany. How more beautifully could I have given my life for my Fatherland!
“Do not mourn me but try to bring out the truth so that justice may conquer. Only thus will you come to honor.”
CHARACTERISTIC REACTION
The reaction of the Nazi press to this letter is characteristic. “If the Jew Rosenfelder thought that Germany would change her attitude toward the Jewish race, he took his life in vain,” one paper commented. “We, too, think of him without hatred. On the contrary, we are glad of his action. We will not object if all his co-religionists will follow his example.”
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.
