The Star reported today from “a highly reliable source” that a pogrom in Prague scheduled to be organized on Easter Saturday and Sunday on the lines of the German anti-Semitic excesses last November was believed to have been averted because of the refusal of Baron Konstantin von Neurath, Protector for Bohemia-Moravia, to enter Prague until German military law was removed and the Czechs permitted to govern themselves.
According to The Star’s informant, the plan was drawn up to give the impression that the organized attack on the Jews was actually a spontaneous demonstration by the Czechs. On March 20, the paper said, selected members of the Czech Fascist organizations and the Sudeten German Free Corps visited Vienna to receive coaching in Jew-baiting, some of whom returned on March 31 and had been instructing subordinates. It was anticipated, according to The Star, that German troops occupying Prague would receive orders not to intervene, while the police would interfere only to save “Aryan” property.
The paper declared that Baron von Neurath was known as a moderate and that the anxiety felt in London refugee circles lest the weekend witness an outburst of brutality comparable to the Berlin and Vienna pogroms had been considerably allayed by the knowledge that the new Protector had defied the extremists.
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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.
