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Jews in Germany Protest Distorted Portrayal of Jew on Television

December 19, 1960
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The Jewish community here protested today against what it called a “distorted” portrayal of a Jew in a play appearing on the national West German television network.

In an open letter to the Stuttgart radio company, Heinz Galinski, head of the West Berlin Jewish community, said that the play had “depicted a Jewish citizen in the manner of a Nazi caricature.” His protest referred to a scene in the play in which a salesman, ostensibly of Polish-Jewish extraction, sold clothes in a second-hand shop.

Mr. Galinski said the scene “must give a completely false picture to German youths” who had never met a Jew. But Carl Zuckmayer, a German-born United States citizen who wrote the play, “The Captain of Koepenick,” said he was “entirely in agreement” with the television portrayal. He said the Jewish dealer was “a type as then lived in old Berlin.”

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