J e w i s h  R i t u a l -
M u r d e r :   a   H i s t o r i c a l   I n v e s t i g a
t i o n
Der jüdische Ritualmord: Eine historische Untersuchung
von Hellmut Schramm, Ph. D.

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Page 2
(p. 82)

To begin with, the most terrible tales of torture were put
into circulation, similar to those centuries before after the Tridentine
trial; sadistic licentious acts, of a kind which can originate only in
Jewish brains, were attributed to the investigative authorities: according
to which -- to give just a small selection from the "official report" of
the Jew Pieritz from Damascus from 13 May 1840 (11) -- the
"unfortunate prisoners" together with their children were placed in
ice-cold water (which indeed in and of itself would already be a "torture"
for the Jews [Jews living in Orthodox communities throughout Europe and
Asia Minor had the reputation of being less than scrupulous about matters
of personal hygiene]) and then left to roast slowly; "by means of a
machine" their eyes were squeezed from their sockets and glowing irons
pushed into their bodies. The "victims," pinched day and night, had had to
stand erect for three full days, and with burning candles even their bent
noses were delicately tickled. Hundreds of Jewish children were thrown
into confinement and they were dropping like flies there. When one reads
this nonsense, one has to ask oneself, who would actually have reacted to
this. The sense of these atrocity reports was clear: the statements of the
arrested Jews were supposed to lose their value through these maneuvers,
as "having been wrung from tortured men"; but the embarrassing fact was
that the criminals presently in solitary confinement made, in
separately held interrogations, statements which agreed, not to
mention the results of the investigations conducted on the site. [These
atrocity stories may strike the reader as "warm-up" exercises for those
contrived or confabulated for propaganda about "the" Holocaust,
ninety-five years after these events took place.]

Nevertheless, the
French government commissioned its Consul from Beirut, Desmeloizes,
to go to Damascus, in order to begin the trial anew. His protocols
concerning this second trial could not but confirm the facts of the case
recorded by Ratti-Menton, in full compass. (12)

From
this point on the victims themselves were held responsible for their own
awful fate and not the murderers: Father Thomas, whom no less a person
than the French Minister-President Thiers had described as "a model
of piety and benevolence," as "popular with all denominations and highly
respected," as "benefactor and (83) friend of
humanity(13)," became
in the Jewish press a by no means impoverished old grey-head, who "had
collected a far more considerable wealth than the rules of his order
allowed him; he did not like to give, talked a lot and with anybody,
was sometimes intemperate, of easy character and slight knowledge."
(14) Later, at
the end of this glorious century, a fourteen-year-old peasant girl, who
bled to death in the synagogue of Tisza-Eszlár under the
butcher-knife of an international band of Jews, was described as "whore
and good-time girl," and the upper-fourth-former Ernst Winter,
similarly slaughtered in a Konitz butcher's cellar by a murderous Galician
mob, was described as a homosexual letch, by the same the same press which
had meanwhile worked itself up to the position of the "mediator of culture
and civilization" among an "enlightened humanity." But all of this was
called "liberation of the Jewish spirit from the unworthy chains of the
dark Middle Ages" or, in brief: Emancipation.

On 23 May 1840,
therefore after the trial in Damascus would have been definitively
concluded and the sentence of judgment of the authorities would have
become legally valid, a Jewish weekly, the Orient(15), called to
life in the same year by the "Instructor at the University at Leipzig,"
Julius Fürst, wrote under the entry "Damascus" the following
introductory sentences: "A blood-red star has risen in the East, which
seems to conjure up the superstition of the Middle Ages and its
horrifying consequences; a dreadful fairy tale, which in earlier
centuries Europe told itself from dreams, and which the Orient
may now have in mind at its awakening. This fairy tale may get a
grip raptor-quick upon the emotions of the people, and like the terrors of
hell, malice and religious fanaticism may keep alive the now awakened
memory of it, and the silence of Jewish voices would not be timely, as
influential men, who have exerted themselves with the governments in this
matter, have also realized." (84) Whoever
has gotten used to reading the most important things between the lines
when studying Jewish sources, will now know, especially from an analysis
of the last part of the sentence, where the Damascus "case" was supposed
to be steered: "to the horrifying tales out of earlier
centuries."

The storm signals were up. In all nations, almost
simultaneously, "the speakers stepped forward as if one man. . ."(16). World
Jewry was mobilized! In the synagogues the Rabbis howl or threaten as the
case calls for. "The Head Rabbi of Marseilles came forward with a fierce
counter-statement; in Smyrna defending voices were raised (Head Rabbi
Pincas), Ullmann, the Rabbi in Krefeld, appeared; Aub
in Munich bestirred himself and fought with the Bavarian papers.
Philippson in Magdeburg pointed out in the paper widely circulated
there, not only the absurdity of such an accusation, but made an effort at
the same time to keep level-headed and enlightened Germany in its
passionless state by means of clear and calm words." (17)

Some
of these effusions exist for us today as bibliophilic oddities; they are
all substantially reduced to one common denominator, which a Jewish "trade
paper" itself indicates to us: "To show the baselessness of the charges in
advance, even before the facts of the murder case were available."
Only some of these curiosities do we wish to get into excerpting as
especially eloquent children of their time.

The Rabbi Isaac
Levin Auerbach held the days of the Leipzig fair as especially
suitable, in order "on Sunday evening, the 19th of May 1840 at the
German-Israelite worship service taking place during the fair in Leipzig,"
to give a so-called sermon at the synagogue in Leipzig in front of the
Jews of the fair coming from all nations, about "Israel's most recent
disaster in the East(18)," which
went off so well that it was "distributed in print by demand." The title
actually already says it all. The Rabbi asserted to start with, that he:
a) for Zion's sake can not be silent, b) for the sake of Jerusalem cannot
be at peace and c) will speak for the sake of the honor (85) of his religion. After numerous citations from
the Old Testament he comes, with tearful eyes, to the most noteworthy
determination possible, that "the morality of our age for quite some time
has not kept pace with the spiritual education of it." For the time being
let us content ourselves with the Levin Auerbachian discovery that
"the nations for some time have not stood at the stage of perfection to
which the Divinity has summoned them and wishes to educate them by means
of the revelation of His holy word." In dry words: the Gentile peoples
keep being so bold as to raise a protest against the slaughter of their
members -- they are therefore "not as yet perfect," i.e., ripe! But at the
end of his sermon the Rabbi scents the coming dawn; he preaches then, to
wit: "Indeed, my devout listeners, we are going toward a more beautiful
time, when injustice , which separates and cuts men off from one another
in all that their natural equality demands, in all that is essential
and a condition for a happy life, where the ridiculous mania, to
associate men with one another in one thing, in the external form in
which, according to Nature's determination they are supposed to be
separated for all eternity, will disappear from the earth; we are
approaching a time of tolerance, of true brother-love, as our
sacred religion has promised. That unfortunate event (Damascus), over
which we weep, will hasten this time. . .and so reads the word of
Scripture: just as the earth produces her plants, and the garden lets its
seeds sprout forth, thus does the Eternal One let virtue and grace spring
forth as a blessing to all nations. Amen." This "Amen" indeed would be in
the 20th century nearly spoken over Gentile humanity! [And still may be,
thanks in large part to the defeat of Germany in 1945.]

About the
same time, on Ascension Day 1840, the "famous canon and cathedral preacher
of the Metropolitan church at St. Stephen in Vienna, Dr. Emanuel
Veith, celebrated pulpit speaker" -- and baptized Jew -- "before
thousands of devout Christians" spoke the following memorable words at the
conclusion of his talk: "You all know it, my devout listeners, and whoever
perhaps still (86) does not know, may hear it:
that I was born a Jew and. . .became a Christian -- have given
comfort and hope to professed Christians in my pastoral calling ". . .And
now this admirable man administered the pacifier and continued with
emotion in his voice: "And thus I swear it here, in the name of the
Trinity, that the lie, spread through evil cunning that the Jews at the
celebration of their Easter festival (Pessach)[= Passover] use the
blood of a Christian, is a malicious, blasphemous slander, and is neither
contained in the books of the old covenant, nor even in the writings of
the Talmud, which I know exactly(19), and have
zealously researched. This is true, so help me God". . .(20)

On
the 18th of August 1840, in order to anticipate a little in this
connection, on the occasion of the celebration of the founding of the
institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society in the Orphanage
Church at Dresden, another "Christian" colleague of the Rabbi
Auerbach, Franz Delitzsch, gave his "Mission Talk with
Regard to the Persecution of the Jews at Damascus and Rhodes(21)." After
the scholar of Scripture -- the same individual, by the way, who 40 years
later as Professor of a theological faculty rendered his "expert opinion"
about another ritual-murder (22) -- had had
to make the "heartbreaking" discovery, that Israel still hadn't the
slightest desire to be "converted," although the high amounts of the
Jewish-collection(23), paid by
the pennies of the German church-goers, sought to make this appealing from
a financial perspective as well, Delitzsch finally found the three
main obstacles to his attempts at conversion in the "changed circumstance
of the Christians." One of these "main obstacles" is, according to his own
words, "the general hatred of Jews, which is still not uprooted despite
all of the humanitarianism and all the cosmopolitan-mindedness of which
one can boast today. . . This general hatred of Jews has made accepted all
sorts of unjust accusations against the Jews, which make them more and
more alienated from Christianity and lead them astray from charity." To
these belongs (87) now the accusation of ritual
blood-murder, an accusation "whose mendacity orthodox teachers of our
church have maintained and proved, but which, as if transplanted from the
West into the Levant by a dark power, has brought new, bloody persecutions
upon the people already oppressed there (the Jews)." The events in
Damascus must have transformed everyone "to holy rage and pain." It is
irresponsible, "that such an evil reputation has been made of the
Christian name among the Jews of the world." This mission speech, which
doubtless encouraged the devoutly listening congregation to more generous
donations(24) for the
lost lambs, and which concluded with the same Bible passage "which has
been chosen as the inscription for the newly built Dresden
synagogue," gives still further explanations, which additionally
weaken its effect; (88) it is also discussed in
the Jewish "culture paper", the Orient. The remarks of the Jewish
reviewer, that "this speech is composed entirely in the attitude of the
Mission Society, one might say filled with the longing, to see Israel
converted to Christianity, therefore it would not belong here. . ."
had to have given Delitzsch, the employee of this paper,
something to think about.

Now who are the "influential men, who
exerted themselves with the governments," as the Orient wrote in
1840, who are the "powerful of this world," about whom, in the same year ,
a L. H. Loewenstein in his polemic, Damascia or The
Persecution of the Jews in Damascus and its effect on public opinion
(25), knew
enough to report -- let us note: already in 1840! -- "that a wink of their
eye might plunge kings from their thrones down into the loneliness of the
night of the dungeons," -- "that a word from their mouth might open
iron gates and lead the imprisoned to the golden light," -- who are
they, who break "the bonds and chains"? Oh, we're getting to know them
all, them and their highest and most Christian of protectors and
accomplices; we only wish to make the effort to arrange as chronologically
as possible the abundance of the existing letters, reports, appeals,
speeches and accounts!

Adolf Crémieux (geb. Smeerkopp)

There is first of all the Head Jew, Isaac Adolphe Crémieux -- let
us not be tripped up by the fine-sounding name -- he, too, once had a
different name; his origin was in an old Amsterdam Jewish family of
swindlers named Smeerkopp(26), he was by
trade an "attorney," the "true and correct advocate of Israel, the great
advocate for justice and the honor of Jewry, defender of the innocent and
advancer of civilization." -From his lips speech dripped sweeter than
honey, "with blazing words, with magical eloquence he laid bare the tissue
of lies, the credulousness (89) of the ignorant
rabble (the Gentile citizens of the state are meant!)." (27)

In
the July Revolution of 1830, as a convinced republican he helped hound
away the Bourbons; under the "Citizen-King," by the grace of Judah,
Louis Philippe, this sly Jew then further played his republican
role and propagated the full emancipation of his racial comrades. At the
time of the trial of Damascus, 1840, he has already ascended to
"Vice-President of the Central Consistory of the French Israelites" and
played a great role in political life, so that already in 1842 he was able
to move into the Chamber of Deputies. In the 1848 Paris Revolution he
became for a short time Justice Minister of the provisional government,
but then withdrew for some reason or other, in order to spin his threads
behind the scenes; his great time came once again after the fall of the
Empire in September 1870, after he had joined the government of the
"National Defense" and for the second time took over the Ministry of
Justice. Jointly with his racial comrade Gambetta, he let the
French bleed to death through a senseless agitation for war and through
the Paris Commune uprising. As Grand Master of the "Grand Orient" and of
the Judaized French lodges, he put a price of the sum of one million on
the heads of the German lodge brother King Wilhelm I as well as upon
Bismarck and Moltke. In the "Alliance Israélite Universelle" (AIU)
co-founded by him, "this spawn of the pit of imperialistic Jewry"(28) delivered
to Jewry the most dangerous and most unscrupulous weapons. As branches of
the AIU there came into existence in London the "Anglo-Jewish
Association," in Vienna the "Israelitic Alliance," in Holland the
"Nederlandsche Afdeeling" of the AIU.

Its motto for all these was:
"All of Israel stands surety for one another" -- Article I of the program
of the AIU reads however: "The AIU has for its goal: 1. to work everywhere
for the equal standing and the moral progress of the Jews,
2. to be an effective support for those who suffer in their role as Jews.
. ."  (Jüdisches Lexikon, 1927, Sp. 224).

'Sir' Moses Montefiore

For the realization of this "program," (90) the
Italian-English Jew "residing" in London, "Sir" Moses Montefiore
gave assistance to the best of his powers -- we are not able today to
determine any longer what he may have been called earlier; according to
the identification of the Jewish Lexicon he was "the most
representative figure of Jewish politics of the 19th century," -- "leading
member of the Jewish community in London, son-in-law of Nathan Meyer
Rothschild" -- therefore an absolute match as colleague for Mr.
Smeerkopp-Crémieux in Paris. The latter began the course of his
political life as "attorney," while Montefiore began his -- and
this is typical -- as securities-broker of the London house of Rothschild;
his grandfather, an active Livornian Jew, had been enrolled as a straw hat
dealer in London, and married the sister of this Nathan and is
thereby socially competent enough, to be able to stand up for the equal
rights of the Jews. In 1837 he was chosen "sheriff" of the City of
London (chief magistrate), later ennobled by Queen Victoria and in 1846
dubbed a Knight (Baronet) "for the great merit he earned for the Jewish
people." From 1835 until 1874 he was President of the "Board of
Deputies of the British Jews" [This remains one of the most powerful and
intimidating Jewish organizations today -- just ask historian David
Irving, who has been unmercifully hounded by this gang.] and as such in a
position "to be able to act especially effectively in this official
capacity at his foreign missions in the service of the Jews." The
first international "mission" which he carried through was the journey of
the year 1840 undertaken together with Crémieux to Damascus. "In
order to help the Jews in Russia," he traveled in 1846 and 1872 to
Petersburg; in 1859 he made Rome insecure, in 1864 Morocco and 1867
Romania. In Palestine he surfaced not less than seven times: "His plans
for the Jewish colonization of Palestine were not only of a philanthropic
kind, but on the contrary were related to the political train of
thought represented later by Theodore Herzl" -- so writes the
Jewish Lexicon about the true reason for this "mission" quite
openly! "Sir" Moses Montefiore "enjoyed the inestimable advantage
of possessing the support of the British government and of British public
opinion for his actions." After his death "Queen Victoria, who personally
treasured him very much, conveyed the dignity of the baronetcy to his
great-nephew Francis Abraham Montefiore."

Obviously the
influence of the Rothschilds also upon (91) the
further course of events in Damascus has been of decisive significance.
One glance at the family tree of these bank-hyenas sitting in London,
Frankfurt-on-Main, Vienna, Naples, Paris, and even in Constantinople,
added to his masterwork Hofjuden [Court Jews](29) by
Peter Deeg, is sufficient to recognize the forlorn position of the
French Count Ratti-Menton from the beginning, in this unequal
struggle with the Jewish octopus.

Indeed, as Athanasius Fern(30), a high
Church dignitary in Milan wrote: "Like huge garden spiders the money
princes of Judah, the kings of the Jews, have fastened themselves upon the
main cities of the Continent, and from there outward the filthy threads of
their web reach out to Ultima Thule. They hold the gauge of world politics
in their right hand, they are the vultures of the stock exchange and the
hyenas of speculation; before the ring of their voices totter the
thrones and smaller seats of power, crowns and crownlets; before the
luster of their names, the purple of royalty
pales."

"Montefiore's ideas, Rothschild's gold, and
Isaac d'Israeli's revolutionary spirit -- what driving power has a
kosher Trinity harmonically attuned to one another!"(31)

We
have thereby presented in condensed brevity those chief actors who "do not
rest from washing pure the name of Israel from the shame, with which
fanaticism and intrigue sought to besmirch them," who "deserve the
idolization of all co-religionists, whose name will live in History. .
."(32)

The
remaining figures of this tragedy who acted for the Jews were without
exception secondary creatures, but no less dangerous because of it -- all
the same, whether it was a matter of a chief of state or his lowliest
police constable. In a letter of 5 March 1840, when the interrogations in
Damascus were not even finished, the "attorney" Crémieux, although
no excerpts of any sort from the documents could have been available to
him, already knows enough to report that , 1. "those accused of the
terrible murder in Damascus are not the criminals" and that "the
confessions, coerced from the beginning by torture, but which were
rescinded with the return of consciousness (92), can not justify the charges."

On the 7th
of April 1840 -- therefore still during the trial -- the same individual
published in the Journal des Débats an open letter, which
first of all described the facts of the case falsely and then went on to
the reports of atrocities concerning the alleged persecutions of the Jews.
What interests us, however, is only the conclusion of the eight page
printed epistle. It reads: "French Christians, we are your
fellow-citizens, your brothers! You have given to the world the
example of the gentlest, the purest tolerance. Serve as a shield for
us, just as you have served as protector! But most of all, may the
French press take on the sacred matter of civilization and the
truth with that noble zeal which has been its glory. This is a
beautiful role, which becomes it so well, and which it fills so
magnanimously!" In these concluding sentences Crémieux, for once,
does express three great truths: 1. that the French in their Revolution of
1789 gave to the world a truly unique example of how [a country], from
pure "Brotherhood" and "Equality of all of that which bears the human
face," can commit national suicide, [Unfortunately, a pattern which is
presently repeating itself.] which the Jew Cohen in his
attention-getting book which appeared in 1868: La question juive
acknowledged with the following contemptuous sentence: "For the Jews the
Messiah arrived on 28 February 1790 with the Rights of Man," 2. that
France might serve as a "shield" for Jewry -- on that point actually
nothing has changed until recently; and 3. that the press already fulfills
Jewish wishes in every respect "magnanimously"!

After pronouncement
of the judgment the expert opinions of "eminent Christian authorities"
were requested, in order to stress the baselessness of the charges -- in a
later great ritual-murder trial in Hungary, Jewry received these
"Christian credentials" delivered by the dozen.(33) The
Allgemeine Zeitung published the "expert opinion" of a Herr
Councilor Professor Dr. G.H. von Schubert in Number 121 from April
1840 under the headline: "The alleged Act of Murder by the Jews in
Damascus." The Herr Councilor finds it "inconceivable, that the echo of a
barbaric, (93) senseless fairy-tale of the
Middle Ages about the manner in which the Father disappeared and then
is supposed to have been murdered by the Jews, was able to pass on to us
Christians of the 19th century and so easily be repeated among us." As a
Christian traveler, he has become accurately acquainted with the
Jews of the East and is able consequently "to say with fullest conviction,
that that strange horrifying fairy-tale stands in such a total
contradiction to the attitudes and inviolably strictly-held religious
practices of the Jews," that the Jews can in no way be viewed as
the perpetrators!

But the Herr Councilor is correct on one point,
when he reliably determined that the "religious practices of the Jews are
maintained strictly inviolable"; these were even so mercilessly carried
through, that already in those years, when the professor was roving the
shores of the East as a Christian traveler, for instance in some regions
and on some islands of the Near East, an unwritten law existed, according
to which at certain definite times in which, according to frightful
experience handed down of old, children regularly disappeared without a
trace, and indeed from the Gentile part of the population, it had
been forbidden to the Jews to leave their apartments, for example the
procession of the Jews held at the time of a death. It is not without
interest to note that also, for example, at Nuremberg and Bohemia in
earlier centuries similar prohibitions existed. For Nuremberg the Emperor
Maximilian I in 1498 had issued a nocturnal curfew for Jews (Tentzel,
Mon. Unt., 1697, page 228).

But "the sympathy which
enlightened Christians showed the stigmatized, did the heart good, and
history will never forget those who let no time go by in placing Man and
his moral being in the right light, against the attacks of
narrow-minded stupidity. Among these noble men the bishop Dr.
Dräseke was the first, in that he made the declaration in writing to
the Rabbi Philippson that he perfectly agreed with the arguments of
the latter in the Magdeburg newspaper and had to thank him for it. Indeed,
even alms from the side of the Christians arrived for hungry
Israelites, a (94) propitiatory sacrifice, as
it were, upon the altar of offended humanity" (34) Not in
vain had Jew Loewenstein directed his cynical appeal "to the
liberal Rationalists, who fight for the principle of theological
enlightenment": "You lights upon the field of Theology, it would
now be for you to show that this study does not merely amount to verbal
wisdom, but on the contrary that also a sweet, marrow-like core is
contained in those many dry and indigestible peels, that
Humanitarianism is the beautiful reward for years-long research.
You great theologians and philologists of Germany, here is a practical
field for your wisdom acquired in long years! You have toiled greatly,
greatly, plowed and sown; here stand stalks in full ripeness, the time of
the harvest has come, do not sleep through it!" -- Let us note the
year: 1840.

In the Journal de Smyrne since the 14th of May
1840 there appeared ongoing reports out of Alexandria, which had as author
the Christian-camouflaged "missionary" G.W. Pieritz. This
"report-making" about the events in Damascus can be described as the quite
successful and effective precursor of the modern Jewish
atrocity-propaganda. In a shameless manner the facts were mixed up -- even
the representative of a European Great Power, the French Consul
Ratti-Menton, was accused of "a punishable negligence" -- so that
it is appropriate to concern ourselves more closely with the character and
the racial affiliation of the author. The "Protestant missionary" G. W.
Pieritz was a member of the "London Society for the
Propagation of Christianity among the Jews, which was the first
organization among the Christians to grasp the standard for protection
of Jewry" (35). When we
then learn that the society had this report of its "missionary" printed
and distributed at its own expense under the title: Statement of Mr.
G.W. Pieritz, a Jewish Convert, and assistant missionary at
Jerusalem, respecting the persecution of the Jews at Damascus: the result
of a personal inquiry on the spot, and (95)
we are further informed(36) about
these intimate Jewish-"Christian" relationships through the Jew L.H.
Loewenstein -- he had to know this definitely, of course -- to the
effect that another representative of this enterprise of highly political
Londoners, the "preacher" W. Ayerst in a "friendly and worthy-of-his-class
manner" assisted at the composition of the Jewish polemic Damascia
in the year 1840, at which also, upon his special recommendation, another
baptized Jew(37), the "Herr
consistorial councilor Professor Dr. A. Neander has performed very
important services in Berlin with the researching of means of proof for
the justification of the Israelites," then we know already enough
information about the Jewish convert Pieritz that we actually
wouldn't have needed his self-confession, produced in another passage,
that he was "born a Jew, trained to be a Rabbi and then converted to
Christianity." This Rabbi Pieritz took himself from Jerusalem to Damascus,
"in consideration of the Christian mission which obligates him to defend
human rights in places of despotism(38)." Since
Pieritz by no means "made headway" with his Jew-haggling [the word
the author uses, Gemauschle, comes from the verb mauscheln,
which means: "to talk like a Jew; to haggle."] with the energetic
Sherif-Pasha, he traveled, after his "Christian mission" in
Damascus had failed, to Alexandria, from where of course his writings were
sent, in order to "be presented to the Viceroy of Egypt." What emerged
from this presentation, we learn as well: (39) ". . .and
have received from him the promise of the appeal of the questionable
trial." This was the actual mission of this swindler, which he settled
to the satisfaction of his London task-masters: Pieritz had to "test" the
ground first. After the departure of this Rabbi, camouflaged as a
missionary, the leading Jews met together in London on the 21st of April,
1840. They decided to approach the governments of England, France, and
Austria, so that these employed all means to set the arrested Jews free.
(96) "Crémieux also attended the
meeting; a deputation, consisting of Baron v. Rothschild, Sir Moses
Montefiore, and some others, was appointed "in order to come to an
understanding orally with the Foreign Minister." The result of these
negotiations, which were conducted orally out of caution, were energetic
interventions with the English, the French, the Austrian, and the Russian
governments. "The efforts at the cabinets of these nations, according to
the example of Germany, were successful. The representatives of the states
of Germany, following the direct pressure of many Jewish banking houses,
undertook steps to distort the facts of this deplorable affair, and thus
to mislead opinion about the true cause of the murder." (40) And "the
Dutch government ordered its envoys and Consuls at Constantinople and
Alexandria to check [the spread of] fanaticism in the East; even the
government of the Great Lord at Constantinople showed itself inclined to
consider the matter, although the conference was of little success"(41).

The
leading role in this battue [Note: a battue is a technique used in certain
types of hunting, where beaters are used to harry, round-up, and bring
their prey to bay and the author uses it as a metaphor for the tactics
used by the Jews in bring the investigators, politicians, and the press to
their side by bringing pressure from several directions simultaneously.]
underway against the judge of the investigation Ratti-Menton, was
assigned to the Austrian Consul in Damascus, Merlato, although at
one time, at least at the beginning of the trial, he was of an entirely
other opinion. Merlato himself is, on the other hand, under the
command of the Austrian General Consul, the Jew Laurin. A entirely
dubious individual, the Jew Isaac Piccioto from Aleppo, by
occupation likewise Austrian General Consul and -- as can be determined
with absolute certainty -- an uncle of one of the ritual-murderers of the
same name, seems to have exerted the control over both. "The Jews of
Austria, and, at their head, Rothschild, are taking action and do
not implore their just and paternal government in vain for assistance in
this sad affair. We see from now on the Austrian General Consul in
Alexandria and the Consul of the same State in Damascus working most
zealously, to restore a status of justice and (97) humanity to the affair [i.e., in Damascus]. .
."

The sudden change of opinion of Merlato and his downright
obstinate manner of fighting against his French colleagues are therefore
by no means accidental or of a personal nature; he, too, was only a tool
in Jewish hands. But the final disclosures Peter Deeg procures for us in
his work, which has just appeared, Hofjuden [Court Jews] (42). We learn
there that the Parisian Ambassador of Austria, Count
Apponyi, was deeply in debt to the Viennese Rothschild.
Under the date 6 July 1840, the former wrote in reference to the
ritual-murder of Damascus to Salomon Rothschild, in Vienna: " As
concerns the affair of your poor co-religionists in Damascus, I will thus
execute the orders and instructions reaching me on their behalf, with the
sincere wish to be useful in this matter." About these matters not
even Merlato, who was then sent on ahead as a battering ram, would
have been permitted to have known. --

For the revision of his views
Merlato, as desired, needed only a few weeks. He reports still on
the date 28 February 1940 to the General Consul Laurin in
Alexandria, with the highest degree of indignation over the "disgraceful
Jews, eight in number", who "slaughtered the unfortunate old man and
collected his blood," so he makes report on the 23rd of March 1840 to the
same royal and imperial General Consul in Alexandria about the result of
his "most conscientious inquiries" performed on the spot. These are to the
effect that the Father and his servant were perhaps not lured by Jews
lying in wait and then overpowered, but on the contrary, at a very
popular(!) place in the city "had a hard brawl with Muslims of the lowest
class, the meanest riff-raff" (Musulmani della più bassa e più
impertinente canaglia), in the course of which both the missing men
could very well have been done away with. Aside from the fact that an old
man already having become somewhat insecure, who went out almost always
only in the company of his servant, would hardly still feel the need for a
substantial brawl, it would have to have been an easy matter for the
report-writer to come by witnesses to (98) such
a public incident as this, yet Merlato spares not a word about this in his
verbose epistle! It is striking that the Austrian Consul interests himself
in the accused Piccioto to an extraordinary degree and
energetically demands the release of this man immediately. The key to this
behavior is already supplied to us! In a supplementary report -- aside
from the usual attacks upon Ratti-Menton -- the "poor Israelites" are
pitied: "The Israelites have endured in this city tortures which only from
this pariah of the Earth are borne without [there being] a frightful
reaction. At every hour the French Consul on entering any house, meets the
most respected names among the Jews, with the most refined manners, and
[who have] a wealth originating from the purest sources, [and who
have] infirmities most deserving of sympathy, [but] nothing is made of it.
. ." (43).

On
25 April 1840, Merlato also pleased his (Jewish) father-in-law, Herr
Premuda in Trieste, with a Jewish-attuned piece of writing,
which the latter immediately sent on to the press. Merlato asserted
that he was troubling himself about the unfortunate Jews "merely out of
"philanthropy," who because of this "blessed his name and prayed to God
for him," as, on the other side, "the Christian bunch (la turba
cristiana)" were "heaping curses upon" him. Among the men convicted of
the murder one counts also this Isaac di Piccioto, "the nephew
of our General Consul in Aleppo."

The Royal and Imperial Consul
sought comfort in witty surroundings; at his location was a clever German
(read: Jewish) author, who would take over his, Merlato's duties for the
Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. Besides this, a "Protestant
missionary" -- it's Pieritz! -- intended a memorandum about the
Jewsih persecutions of Damascus and "several scholars" to issue
publications "for the benefit of humanity."

The Austrian General
consul in Alexandria, Laurin, a Jew himself, utilized the
"enquiries" delivered to him; in a report from Alexandria of 31 March 1840
he is (99) already able to log his first
success (44), in that
he succeeded in submitting a petition to the Viceroy of Egypt, Mehemed
Ali, in order to "introduce the essential matter." Laurin
requested "respectfully to obtain a potent order at the French
Ministry, to the effect that the French Consul in Damascus, Count
Ratti-Menton, who through his conduct caused the Turkish
authorities to use coercion, might at last be dismissed". . .This was all
the more urgent, since the "unrest among the Gentile population very
easily could get out of hand and turn into a regular persecution of the
Jews in Palestine." In fact, Jakob Rothschild, the brother of
Salomon Rothschild, in Paris, had attempted to push through the
immediate dismissal of the inconvenient Consul with King Louis
Philipp.

On 4 April 1840 it says: "Several details stated in
the trial strengthen increasingly my (Laurin) already expressed opinion,
that the accusation of a ritual-murder has no legal foundation. . .I am
convinced, that the Press will raise a cry of horror. . .", and further
on, under the date 6 April 1840, we find the following portentous sentence
written: "I have spoken with the Pasha, the interrogations will be
stopped. Thereby much has been gained."

"This intervention
from the European side has encouraged our deeply afflicted brothers in the
East to take the initiative with their own government," wrote Der
Orient on 30 Mai 1840; these deeply afflicted brothers now directed a
petition (45) to the
Viceroy of Egypt, Mehemed Ali, "in favor of the persecuted
brothers-in-the-faith in Damascus." This reads in part: "The Israelite
Nation(!) has no princes, no State; her glory is buried by the Ages, her
nationality is extinguished. Religion governs her conscience, but it does
not sever (us) from (our adopted) nations. The Israelites of Damascus
are your children, for God has entrusted them to your government. They
are slandered by malice and oppressed by cruelty. The name of Mehemed
Ali rings loudly throughout the universe, for in one hand he holds
Glory and in the other Justice. The Hebrews of Damascus are (100) accused of a horrifying crime, of a crime which
contradicts reason, their religious principles, and even more, history.
The people of Israel are unfortunate, it's true, but their character in
travail has been astonishing, and men such as Your Highness, whom God has
gifted with genius, take pity upon them and do not despise them. Your
Highness, we ask for no mercy for our bothers-in-faith -- we ask for
Justice. To you alone has God entrusted the power over these unfortunate
people, and you alone have the right to rule them. This concerns an old
religion, which they wish to besmirch, and it seems that God has reserved
for you a still greater glory -- to be the Liberator of an oppressed
Nation."

Mehemed Ali thereupon gave command to send first of
all an 800 troops to Damascus, "in order to uphold the peace among the
Christians there"(46) -- in
later ritual murder trials in like manner entire battalions, yes, even
battle ships were mustered, in order to "calm" the Gentile
population.

The consular representatives of the remaining powers
joined in the procedure of the Austrian Consul; the representatives of the
German states got the report issued on the part of the Jews, that "they
might appear in the best light." But the Prussian Consul in Beirut
is especially praised, who "proved himself on this occasion as the
representative worthy to be a successor of Frederick the Great, in
that he united his own efforts for the rescue of the persecuted with those
of the Austrian Consul." The representative of Prussia rendered to "the
Israelites many benefits" at the most important place in Syria and assured
them "they should fear no one; he was willing and ready to serve anyone
who bore the name Jew." As thanks for this he will be numbered
among "the devout of the peoples of the world" and "every kindness
possible in this world" shall be shown to him, as also "his name is to be
praised all over the world, that all peoples might know that Israel is not
yet helpless and that it shows gratitude toward its benefactors(47)."

What
the result of these dealings with the representatives of the European
states in the East finally was, is recognized very clearly by the
Allgemeine (101) Zeitung(48) under
examination of the French reports, in that the paper had reached the
conviction that "the accusations against the French Consul all came from
Jewish sources," since "also Herr Merlato as well as most of the
other Consuls in Syria, namely those from Russia, Denmark, Prussia and so
forth are Jews. . ."

These cosmopolitan gentlemen finally
agreed upon a formula, that "the Austrian Consul General made the
proposal, to withdraw the pending trial from the hands of the Turkish
justice (Sherif-Pasha), and hand it over to a commission of four European
(read: Jewish) Consuls, to which four German 'criminologists' should be
added for the bringing out of the facts" (49) -- in
other words: The Gentile Ratti-Menton was to be eliminated. Before
this plan could be pushed through, an event took place on Rhodes, which
seemed suited to throw the Jewish direction of the case into confusion
during just these critical days.

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Copyright 2001 by R. Belser.
Reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission of the
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