A summary of police reports from various Brazilian cities indicated today that anti-Semitic acts and anonymous threats to Jews were growing as the April 11 opening date of the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann came closer.
Several Jewish families in Porto Alegre told police they had received threatening letters from an “Anti-Jewish Union” which promised there would be “reprisals” for the trial. Swastikas and such slogans as “freedom for Eichmann, death to the Jews,” were reported to have been daubed on walls and painted on or near the homes of Jewish families in Sao Paulo.
A call upon Israel to impose the death penalty on Eichmann was voiced in the State Legislative Assembly here today by Deputy Alfonso Arinos Filho, a son of Brazil’s Foreign Minister. Discussing the forthcoming Eichmann trial in the chamber, the deputy said: “I am a Catholic, and opposed to the death penalty. But the Nazi criminal, Adolf Eichmann, has earned the death sentence.”
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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.