Yorkville Nazis Cut Swastikas into Opponents’ Shop Fronts

Non-conforming Yorkville shopkeepers yesterday complained of Nazi vandalism, which during the last few days has been directed toward marking the establishments of all non-Nazis in the district.

Dozens of shops not enrolled in the DAWA, the anti-Jewish boycott organization, have had their front windows marked with large swastikas. The Hitlerite insignia has been cut into the bay windows of the stores, apparently with a diamond. Many of the shopkeepers believe the markings were made to single them out for boycotting by the Nazis.

The trail of Nazi vandalism begins with a group of shops between Second and Third avenues on the south side of Eighty-sixth street and continues down the west side of Second avenue to Eighty-third street. Few non-DAWA establishments have been left untouched, and only one shop bearing the DAWA insignia was found to have been marked. In this instance, the front and side windows of the Ernst German American barber shop had been cut with the Communist hammer and sickle.

From this point on, almost every Jewish and “Aryan” non-DAWA shop has been marked. According to shop owners, the marking process was begun Friday night and was resumed the following evening.

The operator of the Kalinus Optical Company at 234 East Eighty-sixth street found her shop window marked with the swastika early Saturday morning. She said that because her goods and clientele were both largely German she felt compelled to join the DAWA and hence sent in an application for membership. She has not since heard from the boycott group. She is neither German nor Jewish, she claims.

The Deutsch Furrier Shop at 236 East Eighty-sixth street is understood to be Jewish-owned, but for some inexplicable reason was passed by when the swastika trail blazers set out to perform their patriotic duties. The next shop, dealing in surgical instruments, was plainly marked with the swastika. The cut-rate drug store at Eighty-sixth street and Second avenue was mutilated with swastikas.

SECOND AVENUE HARD HIT

Along Second avenue few shops escaped being tagged by the glass-cutting Nazis. A kosher meat market between Eighty-fourth and Eighty-fifth streets was not marked, perhaps because the advertising displays gave sufficient assurance that here was an anti-Nazi establishment. The Blacker house furnishing store and the B. Hanton furniture store, and the B. Hanton furniture store, both Jewish-owned, were marked with large swastikas, as were a score of other Jewish concerns in that neighborhood. The Hanton establishment also was marred by a large crack in its seven-by-seven-foot bay window.

Cushman’s Bakery, American-owned, suffered from Nazi operations. About fifty small swastikas were scratched across the show window. Windows of vacant stores in that district were badly mutilated with the insignia.

A German bookstore, Jewish-owned, was mutilated with the swastika, and across the front window was scratched the word “Kosher.”