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Hitler-like Youth Movement Linked to Synagogue Bombing in U.S.

January 31, 1952
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The formation of an organization patterned after Hitler’s “Youth Movement” was reported here today as an aftermath to the attempted fire-bombing of the B’nai Israel synagogue on January 18.

Stories of secret meetings at the Onley High School at which teen-agers flaunt swastika armbands, the symbol of Nazi intolerance, have reached the police and are being investigated. Two youths who were arrested confessed that they threw a “Molotov cocktail”–a milk bottle filled with lighted, gasoline-soaked newspapers–through the synagogue window. One of them, the police said today, demonstrated with Nazi salute as he told of the anti-Jewish activities of his gang.

The police believe that the young vandals may have been recruited by older persons, possibly remnants of the German-American Bund of the pre-war days. The arrested youths are being held for further hearings. One of the young prisoners told the police that he and several of his friends had planned to set several synagogues afire.

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