The Histadrut has appealed to the West German trade union movement to take a firm stand and support the extradition to Italy of Herbert Kappler, the former Rome Gestapo chief who escaped last week from a Rome military hospital. The Histadrut recalled that the Nazis persecuted the German trade union movement and sent many of its leaders to prison.
The West German government has refused to extradite Kappler, who was serving a life sentence for ordering the reprisal shooting of 335 Italian Jews and non-Jews during World War II.
The Israeli Labor Party, which is a member of the Socialist International along with the ruling German Social Democratic Party, has also urged Bonn to extradite Kappler. The World Federation of Jewish Fighters, Partisans and Camp Inmates has sent a cable of protest to Bonn.
(In Paris, a bomb exploded outside the Italian Consulate early this morning “in reprisal” for Italy’s request for Kappler’s extradition. A note was found outside the building signed by an organization calling itself “SS-France”. The bomb caused little damage.)
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.
