Mcallen Daily Press

Jewish Youth Is Now In Prison After Activity

By KENNETH T. DOWNS
International News Service
Staff Correspondent

PARIS, Sept. 6 (INS) Herschel Grynspan, the eighteen-year-old Jewish youth whose hands launched the greatest pogrom in modern history, last fall, is suffering from a stubborn illness in the Fresnes prison.

The illness is not a stomach cancer, as has been rumored. Monster Moro-Giafferi, the Clarence Darrow of France who will defend Grynspan when he comes up for trial in a few weeks, told International News Service that his youthful client is afflicted with a stomach ailment.

"I think his trouble is the prison diet," Moro-Giafferi said. "The prison doctor assured me that there is no sign of cancer."

Grynspan has been in prison since last November. He is waiting trial for the murder of Ernst von Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris.

It was at 9:45 a.m. on November 7 last year, that Grynspan, dark-eyed, black-haired and no bigger than a jockey, walked into the German Embassy, 78 rue de Lille, and asked to see von Rath. He was shown into the big, blonde, Third Secretary's office and an instant later the building echoed to five pistol shots.

Attaches rushing into von Rath's office found the German diplomat slumped over his desk. Young Grynspan, looking slightly dazed, docilely handed over his smoking pistol.

The youth told the French police he had committed the act "to avenge the sufferings of my fellow Jews." He had never met von Rath before.

Jews Apprehensive

Jews everywhere, although unaware of what was to come, were appalled and apprehensive.

Von Rath died at 4:30 p.m. November 9th.

Then, without preliminary warning, the thunderbolt fell. On the day after von Rath's death, simultaneously throughout all Germany the pogrom began.

Synagogues, stores, homes and other properties of Jews were burned, smashed, mutilated. Jews were beaten and killed. In some parts of provincial Germany they were driven from their homes into the wilderness like wild animals. Then followed the official action by the State. Wholesale expulsions, the staggering fine of one billion marks.

Grynspan, the slightly pasty-faced wisp of a youth who suffers from indigestion in the Fresnes prison today, was the cause of it all. How does he feel about it now?

Has No Regrets

"He does not regret what he has done," Moro-Giafferi told International News Service. "He is feeling better now because his parents have been permitted to leave Germany, and are now in Poland. He hears from them regularly. They write that their conditions of living have greatly improved."

At the time of his arrest last fall, Grynspan told the French police that a letter from his parents in Germany, telling of their increased misery there, provided the final impetus for his mad crime.

Moro-Giafferi is planning a completely novel defense for Grynspan when he goes on trial for his life.

Defense Strategy

The famous French avocat told International News Service that he will not plead insanity for his client. He said that he will make a political case of it. Humanity versus Nazism. He would not elaborate on his interesting plan, but it is believed that he will put before the jury the whole case of suffering minorities in totalitarian countries. Perhaps he will list hundreds of alleged crimes against the state that von Rath represented and attempt to weigh them against the single crime of Grynspan.

Meantime Grynspan proceeds with his daily prison tasks, folding paper fans, etc. During leisure hours he reads, principally books on philosophy, and works concerning racial problems and Germany. He is regarded as a model prisoner.