The death took place to-day of Nathan Taglicht, one of the four Jews who were wounded during service last Passover in the Budapest Great Synagogue in the Tobakgasse, when Emil Zatloka, a Roman Catholic who had become Konfessionslos, shot into the congregation, declaring that he had committed the crime because he was out of work and starving and held the Jews responsible for his misfortune.
Taglicht was 44 years of age. He is the second victim of the outrage, the first having been Eugen Roth, who died a few days after, Taglicht continuing to wage his hopeless fight with death for nearly ten weeks.
Roth’s funeral, which took place on April 13th., was made the occasion of a big public manifestation of sympathy, being attended among others by the Minister of Education and Public Worship, Count Klebelsberg; the Catholic Bishop of Budapest, Bishop Johann Meszaros; the head of the Reformed Church of Hungary (Presbyterian) Bishop Ravarsz; the head of the Evangelical Church (Luthoran) Bishop Dr. Alexander Raffay; the head of the Unitarian Church, Bishop Nicholas Josan; the Lord Mayor of Budapest, Dr. Ripka, and the Budapest Police President.
Zatloka, who is 43 years of age, is a machine engineer, described as an epileptic and obviously deranged. About 20 years ago he was confined in a lunatic asylum and he has now been sent back there as a homicidal maniac. A diary which was found on him is full of expressions of enmity against the Jews and against the Bible.
A sensation was caused by a story published in the press suggesting that the assassin Zatloka was not insane, as was stated by the investigating authorities, and that the affair had been deliberately planned at an antisemitic meeting held in Budapest with the participation of representatives of the Roumanian Cuzists and the German Hitlerists. The belief is still widely held in Jewish circles that the shooting outrage was deliberately planned by an antisemitic group as part of an anti-Jewish offensive, and the Budapest Rabbinate proclaimed a fast day in commemoration of the outrage.
An official denial was issued by the authorities of these reports denying at the same time further rumours which said that Commandant Hejjas, the notorious Chief of the pogromist bands, which had massacred Jews during the civil war, had visited the assassin Zatloka in the lunatic asylum, where he is confined, and that Zatloka had been paid 10,000 pengoe for committing the crime. Despite the official denials, the Socialist leader, Deputy Peyer, insisted, however, at a meeting of the Budapest City Council, that there are good grounds for believing that there was an antisemitic terrorist organisation behind Zatloka.
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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.
