Only Savages Could Have Done Such Things President of Tribunal Moved by Description of Salonica Pogr

Only savages could have done such things, the President of the Tribunal exclaimed, deeply moved by the vivid description by one of the victims, Joseph Romana, a Jewish official in the Salonica Press Bureau, of the destruction in the Salonica pogrom last July, when he appeared to-day as a witness in the continued hearing at Verria, of the action against the prisoners accused of having instigated and taken part in the pogrom, in which the entire Jewish district of Salonica, known as the Campbell quarter, was burnt down, including the synagogue, in which the Scrolls of the Law were taken out and desecrated, the Jewish School, and the new houses which had been constructed since the great fire of 1917 by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee of America. He had no desire for vengeance, Romano added; he wanted to forgive the evil-doers, as the Jew Jesus would have done.

Three other Jewish victims of the pogrom appeared in court to-day, and described how the Campbell quarter had been set on fire by the pogromist mob, which had surrounded the quarter during the night, and pouring petrol and benzine on the flames had tried to imprison the Jewish inhabitants in a ring of fire, in which they might have perished in their beds. The witnesses told also how the rioters had kept up a continuous shout of “Kill the Jews!”, and had incited others to join them by spreading terrible libels about the Jews being traitors and enemies of the country.

An officer in the Air Force, who also appeared as a witness to-day, again moved the President of the Court, as well as the jury and the Public Prosecutor to indignation and tears by his recital of the terrible things he had seen during the pogrom in Salonica, especially when he told how he had saved a Jewish pharmacist, who had been trapped by the flames in his house, from being burnt alive. The President of the Court and the Public Prosecutor made statements after he had finished, in which they denounced the pogromists, saying that what they had heard recalled the worst days of the Byzantine Empire.

Deputy Bessantchi, one of the Jewish members of Parliament from Salonica, who is a leading Zionist, and a member of the Executive of the Greek Zionist Federation, continued his evidence to-day, explaining to the court the aim and purpose of Zionism, and making a profound impression by his statement.