Non-Jewish commercial groups and students expressed solidarity today with the Jewish community here which ordered all Jewish shops, factories and schools to close tomorrow in protest against an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence. The acts of anti-Jewish terror culminated in the abduction last Monday of a 19-year-old Jewish girl by three thugs who carved a swastika with a razor on her body.
The Federation of Credit Cooperatives and the Chamber of Commerce of Wholesalers announced today that they would join in the Jewish stoppage tomorrow. At the same time student associations of three schools of the University here came out with a strong demand to the Argentine Government for “most energetic measures” to deal with the anti-Semitic outbreaks. These were believed to be a response from fascist elements to Israel’s execution of Adolf Eichmann.
The Argentine Society of Writers issued a statement commenting on the Government’s published communique energetically condemning the anti-Semitic acts, “it is necessary that the action be as firm as the words,” the writers said. They warned that the citizens of Argentine “must keep alert” because if the police continued to “demonstrate its inefficiency” in the situation, it might be necessary to ask military forces to take measures “against the enemies of the Fatherland.”
The student groups similarly declared that if “the offered parties seek satisfaction by their own means, the guilt for the consequences will fall exclusively on the authorities which do not present or repress the violence.”
Meanwhile, the Deputy Police Chief, Miguel Garcia called a press conference in the presence of the father of the girl, who also had been burned with cigaret ends. The police official stressed that his department had not sought to delay its investigation and rejected charges of some publications which said that the police “tended to support certain ideological groups.”
He insisted that the police followed a policy of investigating everything but without trying to examine the faith, race or political ideologies of those involved. One television station broadcast a statement that the identity of the anti-Semitic criminals was known to authorities and that if the officials did not act on that knowledge, the station would announce those names.
The principal newspapers published today editorials strongly condemning the attack and asking for swift action by the police. The leading daily, La Nacion, declared in an editorial that “this shameful action unfortunately does not constitute an isolated fact. It is well known that our diligent police are able to put an end immediately to such excesses which degrade our community to the level of a primitive people.”
Officials of the DAIA, central Jewish representative body, expressed concern today over the fact that no reply has yet been received to a request sent by the organization last Thursday for an audience with Police Chief Enrique Green to discuss the machine gunning Thursday morning of a Jewish restaurant here.
The failure of the police authorities to reply to the DAIA request is considered here as another indication of police laxity over anti-Jewish violence.
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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.
