An Austrian court sentenced two Hungarian Jewish refugees to short prison terms today on charges of forcibly resisting Austrian police who attempted to move them out of the Rothschild Hospital here last March 31. Rabbi Sandor Neumann received a three-month sentence, which was suspended, while Maier Fisher, a merchant, received a two-month sentence which was not suspended. A third defendant, Rabbi Hermann Deutsch, was acquitted.
In the two-day trial the police witnesses were admonished by the court to answer precisely questions concerning the fight which broke out when the police descended on the Jewish camp. It also criticized the records of the incident which a police inspector brought into court. Nevertheless, the court accepted police testimony that Rabbi Neumann and Mr. Fischer had fought the police and had injured several of them. It was alleged that one policeman had been kicked in the face.
Witnesses for the defense testified that the police had clubbed the defendants and had continued to beat Rabbi Neumann and Mr. Fischer long after they were lying on the ground unconscious. One policeman was heard to say that “Hitler let too many Jews live.”
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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.
