Rome’s Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff said he hoped the Germans would not make a hero of Nazi war criminal Herbert Kappler who died at the age of 70 last Thursday in Soltau, north Germany. The former gestapo chief in Rome during World War II was serving a life sentence in Italy for the wartime reprisal slaying of 335 Italians, 70 of them Jews, when he escaped Aug. 5, 1977 from a Rome clinic where he was being treated for cancer. The escape to Germany caused an international uproar.
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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.