A 21-year-old youth who allegedly boasted that he had been a member of the Hitler Youth movement in Germany, and two companions were under arrest today on charges of anti-Semitic violence against a Phoenix Jewish family and a Jewish nursing home.
Police said the leader of the trio was Reinwald Lewita, who came to the United States in January 1957, from Germany and who now lives with his mother, sister and two brothers in Phoenix. The other suspects are Thaser W. Atterberry, 18, and James S. Garett, 16.
The three have signed confessions, police said, admitting a four-month crime spree which included an attempt to set fire to the Kivel Nursing Home, the firing of nine bullets into the home of William Himmelfarb, attempted arson on the Himmelfarb home and a variety of attacks on a Jehovah Witness church and an attempted robbery of a liquor store.
Police quoted Lewitz as saying that the refusal of the Kivel Nursing home to give his mother a job was the reason for his attacks on the home. Lewitz’ companions told police he had talked about setting up a “private concentration camp in the desert.
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.
