Neither informed Jewish nor German opinion views the Ludwig Zind case as indicative of a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany, the Daily Telegraph reported in a dispatch today from its Bonn correspondent.
The report noted that from time to time “relatively minor” expressions of anti-Semitism occur in bars and the offenders are treated “with comparative severity” by the German courts. It cited a recent three-week jail sentence for a German who shouted anti-Semitic remarks during the showing of an anti-fascist film and a two-week term for a disabled German war veteran who had shouted anti-Jewish insults at a Jewish colleague in the course of a personal argument.
The Bonn correspondent quoted Dr. H.G. van Dam, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, as stating that suspended schoolteacher Zind was a “pathological and untypical case.” Nevertheless, it was disturbing, the Jewish leader told the correspondent, that Zind was permitted to hold his teaching post.
German opinion varies, the dispatch pointed out, and though sympathy in Offenburg was with Zind, “enlightened opinion” in Germany considers the sentence just and necessary to reaffirm Germany’s reformed character to the world. Enlightened Germans, including Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, are “painfully anxious to make amends to the Jews. They feel their record on restitution is good, “the Daily Telegraph report concluded.
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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.
