Governments Seek Means to Check Anti-semitic, Neo-nazi Acts

With the initial momentum of the swastika plague apparently checked, governments and law enforcement agencies throughout the Western world sought today to improve measures to detect the culprits and bring them to book and some means of preventing a recurrence. The following is a summary of developments in world capitals during the last 48 hours:

UNITED NATIONS: The Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities was expected to act this week on a draft resolution submitted by Justice Phillip Halpern of the United States and five other members of the experts’ body, which would have the Human Rights Commission call on all members of the United Nations to take “appropriate action” to prevent and punish manifestations of anti-Semitism and other religious and racial prejudice. The resolution condemned the correct anti-Semitic outbreak as “reminiscent of outrages committed prior to and during the second World War and called for a UN study of the outbreak, its causes and the measures taken to halt it.

GERMANY: Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, in a nationwide television and radio broadcast, declared that the world should have learned from the reaction to the anti-Jewish manifestations in West Germany that the majority of Germans were anti-Nazi. He promised full protection to the Jews and advised his people to give a “good thrashing” to any hoodlums caught committing anti-Jewish acts.

BRITAIN: Home Secretary R.A. Butler told a Board of Deputies delegation that he had ordered the police to speed up their investigation of incidents there. He promised a Government statement in Parliament on January 28. It was indicated that the Government would not support a bill imposing prison for religious hate-peddling. The Board of Deputies was critical of the measure as tending to separate Jews from the rest of the nation. At least 12 major British firms were reported to have joined a spontaneous boycott of West German business firms in protest against the anti-Jewish developments there

BELGIUM: Minister of Justice A. Merchiers pledged in a nationwide broadcast that the Belgian authorities would take all steps necessary to apprehend vandals and protect the innocent. Education Minister Leo Collard asked all schools to organzine special courses to explain the dangers of Nazism and the need for all citizens to cooperate with the authorities in fighting neo-Nazism.

NETHERLANDS: Minister of Justice A.C.W. Beerman announced his determination to use strong measures to prevent anti-Semitic activities. He instructed the attorney general to report all such incidents to him immediately and to take energetic action against the malefactors.

ITALY: A law against genocide, already adopted by the Italian Senate, appeared certain of passage today in the Chamber of Deputies. Newspapers said the recent anti-Semitic events had proven the need for such legislation. The Federal Council of Evangelic Churches adopted a resolution expressing sorrow and concern over the “resurgence of anti-Semitic violence throughout the world.” The resolution termed this “contrary to the fundamental principles of the Christian faith” and proclaimed sympathy and solidarity with sufferers from these deeds.

CHILE: An all-party committee of the Chilean Senate adopted a resolution repudiating the manifestations of racial hatred in Germany and elsewhere and described them as a violation of the principles of peace and human respect that “govern the life of the civilized countries of the world.”

ISRAEL: The Mapai Party announced it would consult the Socialist parties through-out the world on the anti-Semitic manifestations and on measures each party could take in its own country to fight them. The Israel Writers Association appealed to the world’s writers, educators and intellectuals to fight the “new epidemic” of anti-Semitism.

PANAMA: A group of 50 Jewish businessmen in Colon closed their businesses temporarily as a protest against anti-Semitic manifestations here, which included the daubing of swastikas and anti-Jewish threats on the walls of the synagogue. The merchants said “there was every indication that it was an international mandate being carried out against the Jews.”