December 12, 2008

100 Years Ago in the Forward

Released from Sing-Sing prison just a few months ago, following a long stint for robbery, 21-year-old Solomon “Nig” Stein was arrested as the main suspect in the “Harlem chloroform robberies,” in which victims were put to sleep with chloroform and then robbed. The police, having been on Stein’s trail for a while, followed him around New York City’s Harlem as he went on a robbery spree. He first stole hundreds of dollars in cash and jewelry out of an East 102nd Street apartment and then made his way to another building on East 114th, where he did the same. Detectives trapped Stein in a streetcar and attempted to arrest him, but Stein, who for obvious reasons did not want to get caught, put up a furious fight. He relented only after the four arresting police officers gave him a severe beating.

75 Years Ago in the Forward

It is estimated that about 60,000 people have left Germany since Hitler took over the country. Of these 60,000, 85% of them are Jews. About 16,000 of the Jewish refugees are citizens of Poland, and the remainder German citizens. These refugees have made their way to a number of different countries, among them Palestine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, England, Holland and Switzerland. About half the refugees are now in France. Others have found work in far-flung places. Bernard Weiss, for example, Berlin’s first and only Jewish police chief, has found work in China, consulting for the country’s major police departments. Weiss and many of the other refugees, such as scientist Albert Einstein, have accused the German government of appropriating their belongings and have been left with nothing.

50 Years Ago in the Forward

As part of a publicity campaign for a new anti-Israel book titled “Israel: Her Position and Her Policies,” Soviet radio has begun broadcasting vicious anti-Israel propaganda, calling the country an “instrument of American imperialism.” Speaking of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, the broadcasts said that in fact it was a war not between Jews and Arabs, but one that was provoked by foreign imperialists attempting to maintain a foothold in that part of the world. The new book allegedly contains secret Israeli documents proving that British, French and American imperialists fomented the 1956 war with Egypt.

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