Emotional Anti-semitism is Difficult to Overcome, President Masaryk Says

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The depth of the anti-Jewish prejudice which is a result of a feeling instilled in early childhood was described by Thomas Masaryk, the champion of liberal ideas and president of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, in an interview with the editor of the leading Czech newspaper, “Ledowe Noviny” on the occasion of the president’s seventy-eighth birthday.

This feeling can never be overcome emotionally but only through the power of reason, the president of Czechoslovakia declared, in relating his own experience.

“When I was a child I feared the Jews, believing that they used Christian blood for Passover. This fear was the result of the frightful ritual murder tales which were told to me by my mother. Since hearing these tales I always avoided Jews and Jewish children. Jewish children sought my company in play as I understood German, but I always ran away from them,” Masaryk related.

“It was only when I attended Realschule that I reconciled myself somewhat to the presence of Jews. I recall distinctly an incident which made an indelible impression upon my youthful mind and which gave me a feeling of shame. It was on a school excursion when we Christian children played together, that I noticed the one Jewish pupil in our class lonely and ostracised. I saw him hiding behind a wall praying fervently.

“During my life I have always taken care that no injustice is done to the Jews, therefore, it was asserted that I supported the Jews,” President Masaryk is quoted in the interview.

President Masaryk took a leading part, while he was professor of medicine at the University of Prague, in the defense of Leopold Hilsner who was accused of a ritual murder in 1899.