Issue of the San Francisco Chronicle from November 17, 1938 reporting on the Kristallnacht riots in Nazi Germany, and the harsh decrees against the Jews that followed. Titled: JEWS FEAR NEW WAVE OF NAZI TERROR TODAY. Refers to the need for American society to address the fate of European Jews.
On the title page is an extensive article reporting on 40,000 Jews arrested in Berlin, and on the funeral of the diplomat Ernst vom Rath, who was murdered by the Jewish boy Herschel Grynszpan (the act that was the pretext for the outbreak of the bloody events of Kristallnacht), the funeral was to take place the next day. The newspaper reports that vom Rath's body was brought to his home in Düsseldorf and that Hitler would attend the funeral. The newspaper also reports on the Nazi decree that the Jews themselves would have to share in the expenses of property destroyed by the Nazis in a total amount of one hundred million German marks. It is also reported that many Jewish homes were left completely empty and looted because Jewish women abandoned their homes with their children and hid in communal shelters for fear of violence. In Breslau, the Nazis stopped telephone services on Jewish streets, and radios were looted from Jewish homes - "Radio is a matter of German culture and is not intended for Jews" was declared. In the cities of Munich, Leipzig, and Nuremberg, there was not a single store left where Jews were allowed to buy groceries, and signs were put up on every corner: "No goods to be sold to Jews". In Munich, all Jewish doctors were arrested, causing distress among Jewish patients who needed medical treatment. In Landau, 40 Jews were forced to leave their homes and told to take whatever they could carry with them. Their homes were confiscated, and they were taken to the unknown. In response, California Secretary General Bernard Field sent a telegram to President Roosevelt expressing his "loathing of the barbaric and inhuman atrocities committed against helpless Jews" and urged the president to act "in the interests of all the pursuers of liberty and justice in the world".
On page 17 is a long article dealing with the preoccupation of the American press with the fate of the Jews in Nazi Germany, the article tries to explain that these reports do not constitute taking a stand on one side or another, and that America fights for human freedom in general, and therefore covers the persecution of the Jews "not because the victims are Jews but because they are human beings... As free people, we have the right to express our horror and warn our people against the bestiality of fascist philosophy", it said. This article includes a cartoon showing Hitler holding a whip with Jews groaning from beatings at his feet, and the caption: "If your American newspapers print more lies about how we beat the Jews, I will beat them more", in an attempt to present the opposite position that it might be better not to publish the Nazi crimes against the Jews so as not to exacerbate them.
Complete Issue. 30 p. 58 cm. Paper slightly fragile. Light tears on the edges of some pages. Overall Condition Good.
