A rash of swastikas and insignia of the Nazi SS Elite Guard, which appeared on numerous buildings the night before the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann opened in Jerusalem in the Rhineland industrial city, Wermelskichen, prompted a workers’ protest march yesterday.
Thousands of workers joined in the march organized by the German Labor Federation. The Wermelskichen incidents were the first of that kind since the trial opened Tuesday. Two masons, one 25 and the other 30, were arrested shortly after Welmerskichen police sent patrol cars around bearing loudspeakers through which townspeople were asked to help find the vandals.
Authorities in Bonn were reported as hoping the incidents in the Rhineland town were not a forerunner of a countrywide outburst of such reactions to the Eichmann trial.
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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.