Jewish Dp Committee Charges Army Intelligence Gave False Account of Foehrenwald Incident

The Jewish Central Committee charged today that certain army officials had distorted the facts concerning last week’s disturbances at the Foehrenwald DP camp in which one Jew was killed and several wounded. The charges were contained in a series of sworn affidavits which were submitted to Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein, advisor on Jewish Affairs to Gen. Joseph T. McNarney.

At the same time, the Committee accused the army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, of acting as a “mouthpiece for false stories,” and of publishing “only the official army announcement although its correspondent was present during the disturbances,”

According to the documents submitted to Rabbi Bernstein, a German mail truck which picked up two Jewish DP’s on their way from Wolfrathausen to Foehrenwald was stopped by two German policemen named Mueller and Ankerr. One of the policemen remained on his motorcycle while the other argued with the driver about speeding and also harangued the two Jews when they attempted to leave the truck.

A heated argument ensued and one of the policemen fired into the air, causing a panic among a small group of DP’s who had gathered outside the camp’s gates. At this point the policeman who had remained on his motorcycle fired at the group, killing Isaac Feldberg and seriously wounding Reuben Machteh in the right arm. Immediately afterwards the two policemen sped towards Munich and informed military authorities that they had been attacked by DP’s.

This version of the incident was revealed at headquarters of the Counter-Intelligence Corps by Simcha Rubinstein, a DP who at one time was well-known in Poland as a boxer. The mail truck driver declared that the two German policemen had attempted to force him to sign a statement that DP’s had attacked and tried to disarm them.

Included among the affidavits are those signed by three German civilians who the Army at first claimed had been held by the DP’s as hostages. The Germans, who work in the camp, stated that they had remained in the camp voluntarily until the disturbance was over.

The Stars and Stripes report said that the police were checking a DP truck when they were fired upon and attacked by a group of displaced persons. The newspaper also printed a vivid account of how troops stood guard with fixed bayonets at the camp gates following the incident. It omitted to mention, however, that this was during the funeral for the twenty-two-year-old Feldberg and it did not print a retraction of the false account of the “hostages.” The paper neglected also to reveal that six DP’s were stabbed in the back when they attempted to hold back the crowd.

While Stars and Stripes could be accused of not printing the true accounts of the incident, the major fault rests with the distorted stories which Army Intelligence released to correspondents.