To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:
May I call attention to an abuse that has surreptitiously crept into the boycott movement against German-made goods? I feel that this injustice may give rise to serious repercussions.
There are a great number of German Gentiles, both in Germany and in the United States, who are completely opposed to the Nazi ideology. Nevertheless, many are being publicly insulted and discriminated against by unthinking people whose emotional reaction against the despicable Nazi persecutions exposes them to an indiscriminate loathing of anything German. There are specific instances of young men and women who were discharged by their Jewish employers simply because of their racial origin; this, despite their repudiations of the Hitler dogmas. I know personally of an instance in which a patient of mine was ordered out of a retail store with the epithet “dirty Nazi” because she was heard to speak in the German language to her small son.
Our abhorrence of German terrorism abroad should not lead us to an unwitting persecution of blameless Germans. The tag “Nazi” applied indiscriminately to anything German is fraught with danger and may eventually alienate a group of people who have no sympathy with the Nazi movement; they may turn to anti-Semitism as a retaliating measure.
Don’t you think it is important to emphasize the distinction between just German and German-Nazi?
Dr. Max Nathanson.
New York City.
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.
