Former Chief Rabbi of Bavaria Dr. Aron Ohrenstein was arrested here yesterday on charges of attempting to flee the country while under a one-year sentence for fraud.
Rabbi Ohrenstein, who has been abroad any number of times since his original convention in 1952 and two subsequent appeals to the German Supreme Court, had purchased a one-day round trip ticket to Zurich where be was going on business. When seized by German customs agents, he protested that he carried nothing but a brief case with papers and about $50 in cash and that the German authorities apparently had no fears of his becoming a fugitive since they had never revoked his passport.
This explanation proved useless and Dr. Ohrenstein was haled before he local district attorney, who had him jailed on suspicion of attempting to flee the country His imprisonment, in effect means that he has begun to serve his one-year sentence despite new legal moves which he initialed last week to upset the latest court lulling handed down at Karlsruhe.
He was convicted of having fraudulently certified restitution and indemnification claim of Jewish refugees who either did not exist or had left Germany before the claims were submitted. “The late Dr. Philipo A##enbach onetime Bavarian Commissioner for Persecutes, was also convicted in this connection and subsequently committed suicide After his conviction, Rabbi Ohrenstein was suspended by the community as Chief Rabbi of Bavaria.
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