Hitlerist Cross into Memel District and Attack Jews Says Lithuanian Paper

A number of German butchers wearing Hitlerist badges arrived a few days ago at Panemun in the Memel district (where #i thuanians are alleged, according to an of official note sent by the German Government to the League of Nations, to have carried out a coup d’etat), says a report which has been received here, and started shouting “Death to all Jews!”. They broke into the shop of a Jewish butcher named Kaplan, smashed the windows, wrecked the interior, threw the meat into the street, and severely injured Kaplan. By the time the police arrived the hooligans had escaped. The next day a group of Hitlerists came from Tilsit and attacked another shop owned by a Jew named Levitan, and this time, too, the police arrived when the hooligans had already escaped.

One of the Yiddish papers in Kovno got on to the telephone to the Governor of Memel, who confirmed that there had been several attacks on Jews, but the matter is under the jurisdiction of the autonomous police of the Memel District, he added, and the Lithuanian authorities cannot interfere. A similar statement was made by the Director of the Citizenship Protection Department in Kovno, M. Novakas, and by the Lithuanian Government police in Panemun. The Memel district police administration at Pagegen stated in reply to the enquiry We know what happened at Panemun. There was some resentment over some business competition between several but others, and there was a fight, The police detachments in the town have been reinforced and order has been restored. On being asked whether the assailants were local butchers, or whether they had come from Tilsit, the police replied that it was possible that some of them might have come from outside the district.