While reports reached here today to the effect that last week’s anti-Semitic riots in Saloniki had spread to Demotica where anti-Jewish disturbances occurred today, a number of Jews here began returing to the Campbell section, the poorest Jewish quarter, which was almost entirely destroyed by fire during the outbreak on June 29. Simultaneously the Jewish Boy Scouts, who have offices in the quarters of the general Scout organization, found theirrooms demolished and plundered. Sixteen scouts suspected of complicity in the outrage were arrested but were soon released.
In the meantime A. Avraam, minister of justice, has returned to Athens after having completed his investigation into the cause of and responsibility for the riots. His probe established that the damage totals 2,000,000 drachmas (about $260,000). Just before he left Saloniki he told the local correspondent of the Athens Kathimerini that he did not remember hearing a report that on the day before the Campbell fire the Jewish community had warned Governor-General Gonatas of impending trouble.
Governor-General Gonatas this morning received the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in private audience and told him that the anti-Jewish agitation was due to stupid religious and nationalist motives but the government was fortunately able to localize the trouble and the result was less deplorable than it might have been if stern suppressive measures had been resorted to.
MOVEMENT NOT ANTI-SEMITIC
The nationalist mevement is not anti-Semitic, Governor Gonatas declared, adding that similar incidents might have happened between Greek Christian groups. He pointed out that the publication of the report that members of a Saloniki Jewish sport club who attended an athletic meeting in Sofia last August had listened without protest to speeches favoring Macedonian independence had irritated the Nationalists and that as a result the Jews began arming themselves for expected trouble.
Thus when Christians passing the Jewish quarters threw stones at Jewish houses the impression was created that the Jews had been the aggressors, Governor Gonatas said. Pointing out that the scattered Jewish quarters made full preventive protection imposible, he admitted that 11 barracks had been burned, a synagogue burned and a schoolhouse partly destroyed.
He also said that he considered it unnecessary for the Jewish sports representative at Sofia to repudiate the Macedonian independence movement with which the Jews have no connection, especially since the Greek Jewish community had repeatedly petitioned for the inclusion of Macedonia within Greece.
In explaining the causes of the attack on the Campbell section, Governor Gonatas denied that Jews in the Carillos quarter had fired on soldiers on June 28, explaining that the injury to one officer and two soldiers excited the nationalists with the result that the Campbell section was invaded and burned the following night.
THREE SEPARATE INQUIRIES
The Governor told the J.T.A. that the minister of justice’s probe had included three separate inquiries-an investigation into the patriotic stand of the Maccabee Sport Club on the request of the Club and the Jewish community, the riot in the Carillos quarter where 21 Jews and six Christians were injured, and the attack on the Campbell quarter.
Admitting that the attitude of the Greeks gave the Jews cause for anxiety, Governor Gonatas declared that the Jewish panic and arming created trouble, although he did not explain how the rioters penetrated the Jewish quarter which is mostly blind alleys and not streets. He also admitted that the newspaper agitation, especially on the part of Nea Makedonia, since June 20 was most dangerous. He said that he had appealed to the students, war veterans and editors to restore calm and that Premier Venizelos had used his personal influence with the publisher of the Nea Makedonia who is a member of parliament but added that no action was taken against the paper because the Greek press law has no preventive clauses.
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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.
