A Jewish circus singer accused of having ridiculed Chancellor Hitler of Germany in his songs found himself today in the clutches of the law. The singer, Don Ela, was informed by the authorities he will be tried in court for his insult to the Fuehrer.
The specific instance on which the case is based is a song he sang while the circus was on tour in the Wilno district. It was assumed he would be tried under Article III of the Criminal Code which makes it a crime to insult the head of a friendly power, punishable by a maximum of three years’ imprisonment.
The case recalled a similar one in which Nahum Halberstadt, a Polish Jewish chemicals dealer, was sentenced by a Warsaw court on Sept. 25, 1935, to eight months’ imprisonment for “wilful insult” to the Reich Chancellor in a letter to a German chemical concern declaring he would not purchase German goods “as long as Hitler and his mob rule the country.”
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.
