The scientific council of Prague’s Charles University has come to the defense of the university’s vice rector, Dr. Eduard Goldstuecker, and has assailed anti-Semitism as barbarian and in conflict with the civilized traditions of the Czechoslovak state, it was reported here.
In a declaration, seen as a response to virulently anti-Semitic mail threatening the life of Dr. Goldstuecker, who is also chairman of the Czech Writers Union and an important figure in the nation’s liberalization movement, the council was critical of efforts to incite what it saw as distrust of intellectuals.
On June 23, Rude Pravo, the Communist Party newspaper, published one of the anonymous letters directed to Dr. Goldstuecker calling him a “disgusting Jew” and warning him that “your time will come, your days are reckoned.” It also called him a “Zionist hyena.” Dr. Goldstuecker published an article in the same issue in which he urged the party to cleanse itself of “people who have tried to smuggle Nazi demagoguery into it.” Dr. Goldstuecker was quoted at the time as saying that his life was threatened and that he put himself under the protection of his fellow citizens. He was a victim of Stalinist persecution in the 1950s.
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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.
