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Berlin Police Prove Ritual Murder Tales Are Based on Anti-semitic Hallucination

April 14, 1929
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The ritual murder tale has its origin in hallucinations that grow out of the anti-Jewish feeling which reaches its height at the Easter season. This is the experience of the Berlin police, according to a communication forwarded by the vice-president of the Berlin police department, Weiss, to the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith.

In connection with the continuous agitation centering about the Manau case in the Berlin and provincial Hitler press, the police vice-presidet described how these accusations are tracked down by the Berlin police.

Lately several women reported to the police that they had heard children cry out at night in a neighboring Jewish school. Others reported they were disturbed by the odor of a decaying body. In all cases a police investigation was demanded.

The police immediately established that the noises termed children’s cries were in reality shouts and laughter, and had come from the home of an Englishman in the vicinity, where a children’s party was being held. The suspicious odor was that of the fumes from an inhalation lamp of an old man who was taking a cure for asthma.

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