Fagin in Berlin

Imported antiSemitism! cried Berlin's U.S.-licensed Tagesspiegel. It was protesting against the expensively produced British movie Oliver Twist, J. Ar thur Rank's cinematic hot potato which the protests of Jewish groups had kept from U.S. screens (TIME, Oct. 4). A short time later, Berliners themselves protested in more destructive fashion at the movie's faithful portrait of Charles Dickens' "Jew Fagin," fence and brutal master of a gang of young thieves.

Oliver Twist had opened without fanfare in a second-rate theater in the British sector, the Kurbel (meaning: the crank). The theater is in a neighborhood heavily populated by Polish Jewish D.P.s. One night last week, D.P.s rioted in the moviehouse, stopped the show, damaged the theater. Berlin Jewish groups and Ernst Reuter, Berlin's mayor, appealed to the British to ban the movie.

The British refused, stationed 30 German police at the Kurbel. A crowd of 300 D.P.s bore down on the theater, smashed its marquee, began a free-for-all with the police. Rubber truncheons and fire hoses did little to check the rioters, some of whom-dared the police to go ahead and shoot. A British officer was beaten amid cries of "Fascist!" Some German passers-by pounced on the Jews, but most only watched. When rocks began to fly, one elderly German woman was seen carrying stones for the Jews to throw.

While the British still debated what to do, the harried German manager of the Kurbel acted fast. Handbills announced a new feature, Der Kupferne Berg (in English, The Hungry Hill), a dull B-picture about copper mining in Ireland.

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