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Send Hoover Protest Memo Against Nazi Attacks on Vienna Jewish Students

July 3, 1931
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In a memorandum to President Hoover and to the Austrian government, the United States League for the Protection of Foreign Students in Vienna, today protested against the recent attacks by German Nationalist students at the University of Vienna on Jewish students and students from other countries. The United States League is comprised of prominent members of the American Medical Association. A similar note was also sent to the rector of the University.

Voicing surprise that the rector had failed to protect the Jewish students from the onslaughts of the Nazis and protesting that the police always appeared on the scene too late and even then declined to act against the attackers, the memorandum goes on as follows:

“We will make these things known to the B’nai Brith which represents 4,000,000 (sic) Americans interested in this problem. We will also acquaint other American organizations and philanthropists who have supported the University of Vienna without knowing the partisanship, cruelty and prejudice of its direction and of certain of its professors.

“We demand better protection on the part of the American government and of its local representative. The lives of Americans are in danger and the investment of years of long study and money is threatened”. The memorandum protested particularly against the Nazi students’ attacks on women and individual students.

More than five hundred Jewish veterans of the Civil War, Spanish-American War and the World War, representing posts and legionnaire organizations in various parts of the country, assembled today for the tenth national encampment in this city. Sessions will continue until Sunday evening, July 5th. Permanent headquarters have been opened at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel.

Though the convention proper will not be opened until Friday morning at 9 o’clock, a large number of delegates are expected to arrive tomorrow and provision has been made by the local committee for their entertainment. Registration of delegates will begin this afternoon. In the evening there will be a reception and military ball in the Crystal Ballroom of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. City Mayor Harry A. Mackey and other city officials have been invited to attend this function.

The executive council will hold its final meeting Friday morning. The opening session will be called to order and greeted by I. Bernard Rotberg commander of the Philadelphia post and encampment chairman. Chaplain Edward Lissman will deliver the invocation. Addresses will be delivered by Mavor Mackay, Joseph L. Kun, Rabbi William H. Fineshriber, Congressman Benjamin M. Golder, Col. Maurice Simmons, Sr., past commander-in-chief of the Jewish War Veterans; Fannie P. Davis, national president of the ladies’ auxiliary. The encampment will then be turned over to Harold Seidenberg, commander-in-chief.

A feature of the afternoon will be the placing of a wreath on the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall. The rest of the afternoon will be given over to an address by Col. Morris J. Mendelsohn, past commander-in-chief, and to the reports of all committees.

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