War on Jewish Dead Goes On: Three More Jewish Cemetery Desecrations in Germany Reported This Week.

Three fresh cases of Jewish cemetery desecration are reported here to-day from various parts of the country.

In the town of Echzell, in Hessen, the Jewish cemetery was entered, and the antisemitic emblem, the swastika, was painted on many of the tombstones.

At Fliesteden, near Aachen, (Aix-la-Chapelle), four gravestones in the Jewish cemetery were torn out of the ground and smashed. There is no Jewish Community left at Fliesteden, and the vandalism, which is believed to have occurred shortly before Pentecost, was not discovered till some of the former Jewish residents came to visit their family graves. The Municipality is offering a reward of 200 Marks for information leading to the arrest of the criminals.

At Halle, in Westphalia, the Jewish Cemetery was entered during the night and eight gravestones and pillars were smashed. The vandals apparently mistook a section of the adjoining Christian cemetery, in which there happen to be no crosses over the graves, as part of the Jewish cemetery, and 32 tombstones were smashed there, too, probably in the belief that they marked the site of Jewish graves.

123 CASES OF JEWISH CEMETERY DESECRATIONS.

Only about a month ago, on May 6th., the German Federal Minister of the Interior, Dr. Wirth, issued a circular to the Governments of the various German States drawing their attention to the necessity of taking drastic action to put a stop to the epidemic of cemetery desecrations in Germany. According to reliable information, he said in the circular, the number of Jewish cemeteries desecrated in Germany in recent years now exceeds a hundred. I feel that this being the case, I must again direct the attention of the State Governments to the importance of instructing the local authorities that they must take drastic action to put a stop to this disturbance of the peace of the graveyards.

I hold, the Minister added, that the most drastic steps must be taken to put a stop to this revolting vandalism, and bearing in mind the experience of recent years, I am convinced that nothing can be done to put it down unless proper punishment is meted out.

The very next day, however, a new case of cemetery desecration was reported from the township of Eransfeld, near Goettingen, where the Jewish cemetery was broken into and twelve gravestones smashed. According to the latest calculations, this brought up to 120 the number of Jewish cemeteries desecrated in Germany since the epidemic began in 1923. The three fresh cases reported to-day bring up the number of desecrations to 123.

About the middle of April, two Hitlerista, both appearing in court demonstratively wearing their Hitlerist uniform, were sent to prison, one for a month and the other for two months, by the law court at Oels, near Breslau, for having desecrated the neighbouring Jewish cemetery at Trebnitz, in the early part of last November. They had smashed 34 gravestones, and painted the antisemitic emblem, the swastika, on the fragments in red. They had also broken into the mortuary, smashed the windows and furniture and daubed on the walls the Hitlerist cry: “Hail Hitler Perish Judeal”, and a picture of a Jew dangling from a gallows. The Jewish Community of Trebnitz offered a reward for the arrest of the criminals.

The Chief Hitlerist paper in Germany, the “Voelkischer Beobachter”, has accused the Jews of themselves desecrating their own cemeteries in order to be able to use the accusation that the Hitlerists do it as a weapon against Hitlerism. The intention, it wrote, “is to discredit the National Socialist movement, whose gigantic strides forward are striking terror into the hearts of the Jews”. The paper argued that the fact that in most cases the vandals who desecrate the cemeteries are not traced is proof that the vandalism” is committed by Jewish agents provocateurs”. On another occasion, the “Voelkischer Beobachter” wrote that while it did not justify the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, there were more important things to worry about like unemployed and starving German people, and it suggested that if Jewish cemeteries were desecrated, it was done only by thoughtless foolish boys, but not as the Jews complain, by members of the Hitlerist Party, and as the result of Hitlerist incitement.

About a year ago, in May 1930, the German Government, through the German Ambassador in the United States, wrote to Mr. Jacob Landau, the Managing Director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, who is now in Berlin, with regard to the frequent desecrations of Jewish cemeteries in Germany: “please be convinced that the Government of the Reich knows its duty against such outrages, and that it will act according to this duty as the preserver of order and peace, and also in the interests of Germany’s reputation abroad, the Government itself feeling deeply offended by such outrages. I am sure that you have done the right thing in sending out this protest to the world, a protest which the Government of the Reich endorses without reservation”.