Chancellor Leopold Figl and Foreign Minister Karl Gruber tonight called on Lieut. Gen. Geoffrey Keyes, U.S. commander in Austria, urging revocation of the sentences imposed earlier today upon four persons accused of participation in an anti-Semitic demonstration.
The incident, which occurred at Bad Ischl on Aug. 26, was part of a demonstration called by women demanding an increased milk ration for their children. The demonstrators are alleged to have shouted anti-Jewish epithets, charging that the DP’s received better rations by using dollars on the black market. The press of the Communist Party, to which the demonstrators allegedly belong, asserted that the persons arrested were anti-fascists who were simply seeking increased rations.
The alleged leader, a man named Zimpernik, who recelved a 15-year term, is reported to have spent four years in Nazi concentration camps. Three other defendants received terms of ten years, two years and six months, respectively. The government leaders told Keyes that the sentences might create “diisturbances among the Austrian people.” Gen. Keyes agreed to postpone execution of the sentences until after he had reviewed them.
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