Jew Hunt

Jolly Berlin crowds in the brightly-lit Kurfuerstendamm nightlife district had more fun last week than these beery, sausage-stuffed revelers have had in months. Well-dressed German women and their swank, duel-scarred escorts vied with shopgirls and mechanics in spurring on with laughter, cheers and songs the most savage Jew hunt since those which immediately followed Adolf Hitler's elevation to power by the ballots of 52.5% of all German voters (TIME, April 10, 1933).

The Jew hunters; tall, blond, mighty-muscled Nazi youths in civilian clothes, appeared suddenly on the Kurfuerstendamm but seemed at first not to know quite what to do. Soon group leaders dashed up in snorting Mercedes and the Jew hunt was on, a peculiar feature being that the sidewalk crowds joined in a hunting chant taught them by the hunters. This was roared out one line at a time by the group leaders, all present then repeating in a fervent chant: Perish Jew! Get the Hell out! Blood-running noses! The best Jew is a dead Jew! Perish Jew! Suiting action to words, the Jew hunters plunged into night clubs, theatres, and cafes, dragged out every customer who looked like a Jew, beat him bloody on tho sidewalk, and slugged any women who seemed to have been with Jews irrespective of whether they were Jewesses or not. A spectator startled by these German deeds was Midshipman Ernest Wood Jr., U. S. Navy, son of a U. S. Army chaplain. "I was standing on a cafe terrace when a woman was knocked down by a man," said Midshipman Wood. "Another woman protested and she too was knocked down. Then the big fellow who had done it asked me, 'What do you think of that?' I expressed my disapproval but he persisted. 'What are you going to do about it?' "

What Midshipman Wood did about it could not be revealed without getting him into trouble with Naval Academy authorities on the U. S. S. Wyoming, which is taking several hundred midshipmen around Europe with none too happy results.* Although admiring shipmates credited small Midshipman Wood with beating up the big Nazi, getting arrested and paying a $20 fine, the German Government officially informed U. S. Ambassador William E. Dodd that no such arrest occurred. Police along the Kurfuerstendamm took little interest in the Jew hunt. When not in full cry after a Jew, zealous huntsmen, swinging paste pots, stuck up posters reading "The Jew is the cause of all our troubles!" covered the doors of what they took to be Jewish shops with stickers warning "I am a Jew. Aryans enter my shop at their own risk!" Comic were the crestfallen looks of the blond, strapping huntsmen who started beating up a swarthy little man only to have him scream "Fools! I am a Storm Troop leader from Bavaria visiting Berlin. Here is my Party card! I was a veteran of the Party when you were still rolling around in your diapers!"

About the same age as the huntsmen is observant Varian Fry (Harvard '30), recently chosen to become editor of the Living Age and now in Europe on a "study tour" to fit him for the job and get him a Ph.D. from Columbia. Reported Living Age's Fry: "I saw one man brutally kicked and spat on as he lay on the side walk, a woman was bleeding, a dirty tear-stained face, a man whose head was covered with blood, hysterical women crying, men losing their temper at the police or the Storm Troopers being kicked or dragged off, women begging their men to keep out of the fight and crying and pleading."

Since the German crowds not only approved but laughed at these goings on, the Government Press felt safe next morning in hailing the Jew hunters as "comrades." Few days later, after Nazi leaders had learned with their perpetual surprise that the latest Nazi outrage had been so regarded abroad, the Government explained that the Jew hunters, while indeed "comrades," could be considered in the Nazi Party as a "subversive element."

Three days later this element boiled to the top of the Party. Berlin's stern but not markedly anti-Semitic Chief of Police, old Rear Admiral Magnus von Levetzow, was ousted for not helping the Jew hunt along, replaced by that ruthless young huntsman Count Wolf von Helldorf. His first act was to decree that Berlin's Jewish-owned ice cream parlors which do most of their business in the evening must close at 7 p. m. Next the Storm Troops, who have recently been repressed, were again given "police duties" in Berlin to "purge the city." They swept like an avalanche over western Berlin, beating up Jews, daubing Jewish shops, slugging Jews' women. Beside each squad of Storm Troops rumbled a car bristling with Count Wolf von Helldorf's police to arrest Jews or others who resisted. Announced the Messiah of Nazi Jew-baiting, famed Race-Purist Julius Streicher: "I myself will head the drive to purge Berlin of all Jews and segregate them in ghettos."

*The disappearance from the Wyoming in Oslo, Norway of Midshipman Kenneth Barr was discovered when a Norwegian girl came aboard tor a tea dance and said he was expecting her. Soon found was a Norwegian chauffeur who said that Midshipman Barr had dismissed him near Lake Gjersjoeen, ten miles from Oslo, remarking, "I am going to picnic in the woods." All Norwegian radio stations then inquired for Midshipman Barr and helpful Norwegians responded by deluging the U. S. Consulate at Oslo with telegrams, notes and post cards conjecturing where he might be. Ultimately Picnicker Barr was arrested by Swedish frontier guards as he tried to leave Norway on foot. He had torn the buttons and identifying insignia off his uniform. "I am unable to produce my passport," said Midshipman Barr to the puzzled Swedes. "I have lived in the woods for nearly a week, eating berries." Since in such matters one State is always glad to oblige another, Scandinavian authorities kept the berry-eater from reporters, rushed him secretly to Copenhagen to rejoin the Wyoming.

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