Swastikas Daubed on Office of Leader Opposing Queens Low-income Project

The ground-floor realty office of Jerry Birbach, leader of the opposition to the low-income housing project in Forest Hills, Queens, has been defaced with red swastikas and charges of “racist” and “fascist.” Birbach told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that he would probably leave the daubings on for at least a while, until the controversy settled down, because if he removed them now “they’ll do it all over again.” Also painted on his office was a caricature of Birbach in a Ku Klux Klan robe. He added that “hate literature” distributed by the pro-Maoist splinter Progressive Labor Party was labeling him an evicter of non-whites, “slumlord,” “racist,” “leech” and “Nazi.” Birbach, who is Jewish, called the vitriol and the daubings the “unfortunate” work of “sick people.”