A call for the Phoenix community to initiate a campaign of educating immigrants in the principles of American democracy was voiced here today by the Jewish Community Council as a result of the arrest of a German immigrant youth charged with anti-Semitic violence against a local Jewish family and a Jewish nursing home.
The 21-year-old former member of the Hitler Youth movement, Reinwald Lewitz, and two other youths were said to have signed confessions admitting a four-month crime spree including an attempt to set fire to the Kivel Nursing Home, firing nine bullets into the home of William Himmelfarb and an arson attempt on the Himmelfarb home. Police quoted Lewitz and his companions, Thaser W. Atterhury, 18, and James S. Farett, 16, as saying they planned to set up a “private concentration camp” in the desert.
The Jewish Community Council resolution condemned the un-American activities of the trio and urged that “the Phoenix community establish a means of educating new immigrants to this city in American principles of toleration and fair play; and further, that this council urges all its affiliated members to take the leadership in strengthening our democratic system so that these incidents cannot be repeated.”
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