The “Koelnische Rundschau,” an influential local daily which on occasion serves as mouthpiece for Chancellor Adenauer, has turned against the retelling of ancient ritual murder legends that tend to keep alive ill will and hatred toward Jews.
The incident giving rise to the article was a conducted tour to Oberwesel on the Rhine, not far from Coblenz, by several hundred Roman Catholics from a township near Cologne. At the “Chapel of St. Werner’s,” the guide gave his customary description, in gory detail, of the alleged “ritual slaughter” of Saint Werner By the Jews of Oberwesel, who are then supposed to have thrown him into the Rhine. The body miraculously floated upstream to the town of Bacharach, the guide announced. “We should beware of reopening by thoughtlessness the old wounds that are now slowly healing, ” cautions the article.
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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.
