The decision of a Naples court to free Ludwig Zind, the anti-Semitic West German schoolteacher, was strongly criticized today in a memorandum from Dr. Sergio Piperno, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, to the Attorney General of Naples. The Naples court order releasing Zind has been appealed to the Supreme Court of Cassations and Zind meanwhile remains in prison.
Dr. Piperno, who is an attorney, stressed in his memorandum that under a 1952 Italian law, the charges against Zind are valid in Italy, even though Zind was sentenced by a West German court. The Italian Jewish leader urged the application of article 13 of the Italian Penal Code, dealing with extradition, and said that Italian law anticipated the punishment of the offenses for which Zind was sentenced in West Germany. The Naples court ordered Zind released on grounds that he was a political refugee and entitled to asylum.
Zind fled from West Germany a day after an appeals court upheld a lower court sentence of a year in jail for his declaring publicly that not enough Jews were gassed. Zind was spotted in Naples by some Israeli sailors as he was boarding a ship for Egypt. He was arrested and jailed. The Naples court said his remark about gassing Jews was a “personal opinion.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
