Praha
The tragic suicide of a brilliant young man driven to the extremity by incessant mental torture of refined anti-Semitism has shocked this city deeply and is causing far-reaching reverberations.
Dr. Joseph Gach, a talented Jewish clinician associated with the German Surgical Clinic of the German University, recently took his life leaving a letter in which he declared he had been driven to that step by the incessant anti-Semitic agitation conducted at the clinic by Professor Schloffer, the director, and Dr. Wenzel, his assistant.
“Professor Schloffer drove me to death!” young Gach wrote in the farewell letter which may yet be the means of avenging him and removing an unwholesome condition.
A civil action has been commenced against Schloffer, Wenzel and fifteen doctors in the clinic who submitted a memorandum to Schloffer that they would not work with a Jew. The police have turned over to the public prosecutor the records in the case for him to decide whether criminal action should be brought against Schloffer and Wenzel.
The tragedy has echoed in both houses of Parliament and the Minister of Education is called upon, by motions pending in both houses, to order an immediate investigation into conditions at the German University and to dismiss those guilty of anti-State activities.
The shocking disregard of the ideals of tolerance and justice fostered in the Czechoslovakian Republic at the German University which recently was the scene of an anti-Jewish demonstration, resulted in sharp protests in Parliament.
“The students at the German University at Praha are being trained in a spirit which is in conflict with the spirit of the State,” declared the Social Democratic representatives in an interpellation. “Many of these students will, after they have completed their studies, occupy important positions in the service of the State. The State cannot look on without concern and cannot tolerate that its future leaders, that its future high ranking officials, should be infected with anti-Semitism at the universities in complete contradiction to the democratic and republican ideals and laws of this State.”
“The State,” it declares, “cannot tolerate that these anti-State sentiments should prevail in the matter of appointments to university positions at the cost of the actual scientific qualifications of the applicant. The State cannot permit that persons who are carrying on a campaign of this character in complete conflict with the fundamental spirit of the republic should be allowed to continue to hold their posts.”
How the incident has stirred the Czechoslovakian press to indignation is revealed by the editorial comment in recent days.
“We cannot allow a citizen to be terrorized and driven to death only because he is a Jew,” writes the Ceske-Slovo.
“Conditions at the German University of Praha, upon which Dr. Gach’s suicide has thrown a strong light, demand the attention of the government and of the general public,” the Narodni Osvobozeni declares. “Dr. Gach’s case reveals a flagrant breach of the laws of the republic.”
The Prager-Press commented: “Conditions are growing up here which reminds us uncomfortably of certain foreign examples. The Gach case fits in with what we have heard of conditions at the German universities.”
The Prager Tagesblatt discusses the tragedy in an editorial which sheds light on the conditions underlying it and some of the forces in play which crushed the young Jewish surgeon.
“The tragedy,” it writes, “is linked up with the political movements which the struggle for State positions and for private positions among us and in the neighboring States has unchained. This political upheaval has also ethical and ideal motives, but it obtains its most powerful impulse from the desperate unemployment among the youth, especially the academic youth, thousands of whom, after ten years of university and higher education are unable to earn a crust of bread.
“The Gach case is only one dramatic instance of the numerous murderous struggles of man against man for positions, for employment, for bread, which has resolved itself into a daily struggle for employment and for vacancies between ‘Aryans’ and ‘non-Aryans,’ between Czechs and Germans.
“The result of this desperate need of jobs, and the overwhelming number of candidates is that in the appointment of professors, the question now is the genealogical tree of the applicant. The expulsion of all Liberals, Socialists and ‘non-Aryans’ from Germany has created an extraordinary situation for the Czechoslovakian universities; it has made available tremendous teaching forces which are too much for our very small budget. There is also the resistance of the students who are being supported by some of the partisan professors.
“Last week, the question came up at the natural history faculty whether the famous astronomist, Freundlich, the son of a baptized Jew and an ‘Aryan’ mother, should be given an appointment in Praha. The Nationalist students submitted a petition against such ‘Judaization’ of the university. They also objected to Professor Storch of Gratz and against the physiologist, Boehm, who were both accused of being of Jewish origin.
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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.
