Corfu

The year 1891 can be called fateful insofar as within one quarter-year two ritual-crimes of complete similarity accompanied by circumstances just as similar, and in two different regions of Europe -- Corfu and Xanten -- focused the interest of the public upon both these places. This captured attention would have been enough in itself to once and for all dispel that darkness which had seemingly become more and more impenetrable for the middle-class world despite Damascus, Tisza-Eszlár and Skurz.

As Jewish gold prepared the way for the Emancipation, so the other great power of World Jewry, its press, methodically extended these acquisitions. It also helped to draw "a thick veil over those bloody scenes" -- and they were forgotten!

In Greece there was soon no longer a single national newspaper which possessed the courage to give a clear, unbiased account of the events on Corfu. But Jewry had ever to fear the unbiased account and knew how to prevent this as well. Thus nothing remained for national Greek circles, other than to hand over their reports for publication to the single foreign paper which had the courage to call these things by their right name.

These original reports, from the pens of honorable men who knew exactly where the murderers and their taskmasters were to be found, but who in and of themselves were too weak to be able to grapple with them, had a shocking effect in their restrained, objective tone. But after four decades of oblivion, we have have an obligation today [1943] to again make them public.

At the beginning of May 1891 the governments of France, England, and Greece dispatched warships to the totally unarmed island of Corfu; the King of Greece made his way there in person, ministers resigned, the high and (208) the highest of officials were relieved of their duties, the governments of the European Great Powers engaged in diplomatic moves in Athens, note after note was exchanged, and the honest old postal clerks of the main post office in Athens affirmed with a sigh that never before during their long terms of service had such a large number of encrypted dispatches come in and been sent out, as in those days!

Finally the most effective thing of all occurred: The Greek debt-notes fell alarmingly at all stock exchanges in the world, the last resistance of the government of a small nation was broken. The Alliance Israélite Universelle had engaged in their old methods here, too! Jewish high finance and international [news] dispatch bureaus, the sharpest weapons of universal Judah, prevented, under downright outrageous circumstances, the implementation of a judicial procedure which had the mission of exacting justice for a ritual-crime upon an eight year-old girl!

"From detailed information, we are in a position to be able to report that no kind of visible traces of wounds were found on the murder victim; to accept that this is a murder done out of ritual reasons, is to credit with belief a populace which is as fanatical as it is ignorant; moreover, this is a case of a Jewish child" -- In this vein wrote the Jewish papers of all nations with identical voice, and for Germany, the leading press organ of the A.I.U., the Berliner Tageblatt, with its circulation of a quarter million, adopted a cunningly drawn up system of falsifications

Fortunately, there was a German paper that made the effort to unmask this infamous Jewish tactic and the broadly fielded campaign of lies and to search for the truth, though without being able to bring about the just and objective realization of court proceedings, since the German government had already bowed to Jewish interests!

Running from the end of April until the end of May 1891, the Neue Preußische Zeitung (Kreutzzeitung) [New Prussian Times (Cross Times -- another name for the New Prussian Times)] brought out the sensational "Corfu Letters," whose contents originated with the expositions of highly placed, nationally-minded Greek politicians and scientists, who had totally and clearly seen through the subversions of international Jewry.

A number of these letters were (209) composed by a parliamentary deputy from Corfu itself and transmitted for publication in the Kreutzzeitung through intermediaries. In their time, these articles in the Kreuzzeitung very much got on the nerves of the Jewish wire-pullers; it's no wonder that the hatred of their tribal co-religionists was directed first and foremost against this brave paper and then against the German nationality itself.

What had happened?

On the night of 12/13 April 1891, the completely blood-empty body of an approximately eight-year-old girl, punctured and cut to the point of unrecognizability, had been discovered in the entryway of a house near the synagogue of Corfu under mysterious circumstances.

The employee of the Kreuzzeitung dispatched to Corfu as a correspondent received a report delivered by a Corfu friend, which, composed while still under the impression of the events and authentic in all details, was made the lead article [1] in the said paper. This letter from Corfu reads:

Also, an employee of the Staatsbürgerzeitung [National Citizen Times], who had plentiful contacts in Greece from his longer residence in Athens and the Orient, turned to three different persons in Athens with the written request for information about the events in Corfu. From all three -- among them a historian and philologist -- comprehensive reports came in which contained downright overwhelming evidence!

The Jew Vita Chaim Sarda de Salomon had originally claimed that it was his own daughter (211) who had fallen victim to this crime; indeed, the identity of the girl was not immediately definitely established because the small body was cut up in the most hideous manner and resembled a single wound.

According to a special report from Athens of 15 May 1891, the official autopsy of the medical examiner showed that death was brought about by the cutting the the neck and subsequent fatal hemorrhage. In the particulars, one learned that neck arteries and neck veins were opened to a depth of 10 cm by means of surgical instruments. Likewise, the arteries and veins of both arms were punctured. The heart was punctured.

Approximately twenty smaller, very deeply penetrating cuts were discovered, in addition to numerous piercing wounds on all parts of the body; the head of the girl alone showed seven knife cuts. The legs appeared forcibly stretched and bent. [2] The body was absolutely empty of blood!

The parliamentary deputy from Corfu, Georgios Zervos, a leading Corfuite, made frightful accusations in his report. Four Jews had been charged with the bestial murder: the Jewish tailor Sarda, who had taken the non-Jewish girl Maria Dessyla, who came from Janina, allegedly as foster child, and ritually-slaughtered her in company with the synagogue servant Naxon, the grave-digger of the Jewish community, and a Jewish beggar by the name of Ephraim. The latter was also charged with committing deliberate perjury.

Four Roman Catholic nuns who conducted a girls' school in Corfu appeared as witnesses for the prosecution. The child had been brought to this school at the approximate age of six; on this occasion, the tailor Sarda avoided giving further details about the child, despite repeated requests, so that the school had to rely upon the statements of the student herself that she was named Maria Dessyla and was born in 1883 in Janina.

These declarations of the nuns were vigorously attacked by the Rabbi of Corfu, who presented a birth register written in Hebrew, in which the murdered girl was supposed to have been entered as the daughter of the tailor Sarda! At closer examination (212) the register was shown to be forged. In the official Greek civil registry the child was listed nowhere as the child of Sarda, although the latter was already resident for twelve years in Corfu!

All of these circumstances allowed it to be recognized that the allegedly orphaned child had fallen into the claws of this Jew years before in one way or another, so that she could be allowed to disappear again if need be, and that all further personal particulars [of the child] had been most carefully avoided on purpose.

The chief witnesses, two Greek police officers, observed the murder band on the night in question as it made to bury a body in a sack in the Jewish cemetary; but the Jews succeeded in escaping. To divert suspicion from themselves, the Jews had made the first "announcement" according to the procedure which they had already practiced many centuries earlier in Trent.

After the Jew Sarda made use of the public town-criers on the evening of 12 April, he appeared in the morning hours of 13 April at the police bureau in Corfu and boldly declared, without a trace of sorrow, that someone had murdered "his child" and thrown the body in a sack, in the entryway in front of his residence, near the synagogue.

To the police commissar in charge these statements seemed highly suspicious, and he held Sarda in custody. On the basis of the statements of witnesses, the evidence grew stronger and stronger. After three days, there appeared before the examining judge a an "exonerating witness" in the form of the half-blind Jewish beggar Ephraim.

This one would have it that, in spite of his poor vision, he had seen five peasants with the child's body on the night in question! Because he continued to get caught in awful contradictions, he fell under grave suspicion not only of perjury, but of being at least an accessory to the bestial crime.

What happened to the accused Jews?

The government authorities at first tried -- as in all nations -- to treat the whole matter as a "fairy tale," but soon had to realize that the case could no longer be covered up! But the government did not possess the courage and -- the power, to honestly take into account the people's sense of right, and thereby the outrage of the populace increased by the hour. (213) In order to gain time, following proven methods the Prefect of Corfu, and then the state prosecutor entrusted with the case, were summoned to Athens to make a report to the government. This report-making absorbed more time.

Meanwhile international, Jewish-inspired diplomacy had paved the way. The Greek Minister President Delyannis responded to the interventions which England, France, Italy, and Austria had made with him for the protection of the Jews, that "the official investigation might come across certain factors which would be likely to foster the acceptance of the Christian population with respect to [belief in] a ritual-murder."

He therefore was making an effort to "postpone the opening of the trial proceedings against the Jews charged with murder, so that this might gain time for producing the necessary proof of their innocence."

To express this in plain words: Delyannis himself is convinced that a child of his people has been ritually-slaughtered -- but his hands are already tied as far as being able to resort to drastic measures!

For refuting the Kreuzzeitung reports, the Berliner Tageblatt dispatched to Greece its own correspondent, a Dr. Barth. We must examine this situation somewhat more closely, because the unscrupulous actions of the Jewish press were responsible for the unrest on Corfu. It has not been possible for us to determine whether this Dr. Barth himself was an international press-Jew, or merely a paid creature of the Jews; However, his tactics were so revealing that even today they still are able to contribute to the story of the Jewish press battle!

Having arrived in Corfu, Barth became involved in feverish activity to confuse public opinion by means of a great quantity of tendentiously distorted and consciously falsified reports and telegrams. In that way he had succeeded in wrangling a declaration, virtually to order, from the Greek archbishop in Corfu and from the Prefect. After these "successes" Dr. Barth went over to his main assault upon the deputy Zervos.

The latter's authentic reports were described as "liberally and totally invented," witnesses' statements, according to tried and true methods, were rendered with distortions; (214) finally, Barth fabricated a conversation with the Minister President Delyannis, to throw light upon the "case" -- but let us pursue this press battle by means of the Kreuzzeitung reports!

"Berlin, 16 May 1891 [3] -- In regard to the "official denial" of the Wiener Fremdenblatt [literally, Vienna Foreign Page], which from Rome is supposed to have reported the incorrectness of our earlier report concerning the ritual-murder, and about which the local Jewish press was naturally beside itself with joy, we have the following to reply:

On 21 May 1891, we read on the first page of Nr. 230 of the Kreuzzeitung under the headline: "On the issue of ritual-murder on Corfu":

(215) "The frightful terror which all of international Jewry felt in every limb when we shattered the attempted cover-ups by the telegraph agencies under Jewish influence with our recent report, and frankly pointed out that in Greece, not only the masses, but also people of substance believed in the existence of ritual-murder on Corfu, has led to the local main organ of the Jews, the Berliner Tageblatt, sending its own correspondent to Corfu.

The latter immediately managed to prove on the spot all the reports on this case published by the Kreuzzeitung to be "inventions," by getting himself confirmation from the Greek archbishop on Corfu that the murdered girl was of Jewish descent and that [it was] probably a [case of] lust-murder. -- It may, perhaps, be true that the representative of the Berliner Tageblatt actually received this information from the archbishop; but only the personal opinion of the latter has been expressed by that confirmation.

The archbishop, however, is no examining judge, so that his judgement is not supported by any kind of real evidence; also, by force of necessity, he [the archbishop] must seek to calm again the wildly aroused passions of the people, so that it is understandable that he will speak as pacifyingly as possible before the public.

This view is totally confirmed for us by a source whom we have cause to regard as competent and it is suggested by the fact that the the Prefect of Corfu, who has meanwhile been dismissed from his office, in the beginning had claimed the same thing as the archbishop is now asserting. Since in the meantime all circumstances which have become known have contradicted this assertion, this claim has led to the uncommon animosity of the people and finally to riots.

And the fact that the government has recalled the Prefect at the urging of the masses of the people likewise shows that the former regards the Jewish extraction of the murdered girl as in no sense established.

Nevertheless, in order to proceed surely and to be able to offer the correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt at least an equally good testimony, we have asked the publisher of the most widely read Athens paper, the Acropolis, to inform us by telegraph (216) of his view of the state of the Corfu Affair, in order to thereby retain one further check upon the reports of our permanent Athens correspondent:

Athens, 20 May, evening. The Kreuzzeitung is completely justified in speaking of a ritual murder. All known results of the investigation up to the present, can be regarded as proof of this."

So much for the Kreuzzeitung. Its reporting was proof against attacks and unassailable. Thus, finally, the German nationality as such had to become a target of attack! These perfidious methods do not appear to be out of date even today! [Indeed -- the instinctive and deadly hostility of Jewry to Germany and Germans, above all other peoples, antedated the Third Reich and the respective positions of these two arch-enemies in 2001 is the one feature of the current situation we can be grateful Hellmut Schramm was spared having to see.].

On 16 May 1891, the Kreuzzeitung reported in connection with the alleged official denial of the Greek Minister President, that the Jewish press had made the further untrue claim that in Corfu "anti-Semitic" pictures and fliers with German text were surfacing. In reality, it was a matter of harmless Greek newspapers, which were regularly published in Athens, Patras, and Corfu as daily papers.

In these were the most varied illustrations concerning the events on Corfu. Several Greek papers naturally put out a picture of the murdered girl, an "extra edition" out of Corfu had a [picture of] the house of the Jew Sarda in front of which the body was found lying in a sack, as well as the hardly sympathetic portrait of this man who had had the murdered child for several years in "foster care."

One other picture represented the nocturnal scene in the Jewish cemetary, where those accused of the murder had tried to bury the body. Under this picture was verse written in the dialect of the Ionian islands, which reads:

The Kreuzzeitung wrote in conclusion to this:

With the beginning of the unrest on Corfu, this infamous lie was again brought up. On 21 May 1891, the Kreuzzeitung received from Athens the message by telegram that simultaneously with the start of the riots on Corfu, telegrams were dispatched from out of Constantinople (!), to Vienna, Berlin, and Paris -- thus the centers of World Jewry -- which told that anti-Semitic pictures with German text were being spread around in Smyrna.

Upon being immediately questioned about this, the Greek consulate there made the unqualified statement that nothing whatsoever was known about this in Smyrna.

This shameless and provocative maneuver of the Jewish agents produced, with all its satanic slyness, an unforeseen turn of events. The otherwise peaceful populace of Corfu, having become mistrustful due to these subversions, recalled similarly circumstanced murder cases from earlier years which had remained unsolved!

Moreover, the nuns had then declared under oath that the little girl had been the Maria Dessyla who was being taught by them. -- Besides this, the Jewish Easter had just been celebrated shortly before the crime.

The unrest which was already breaking out on Corfu at the end of April 1891 has been grossly exaggerated: "loads" of the tribal comrades were "slaughtered" -- one need only recall the atrocity reports of the Jew Pieritz out of Damascus from the year 1840! --.

Naturally the precious Jewish blood flowed out in "currents". The Jews locked in their Ghetto had been abandoned to "death by starvation". In contrast to this stood the official government reports on the facts: The window panes of some houses were smashed into rubble, some Jews, who had behaved too provokingly were beaten with sticks, but not a single Jew was seriously wounded, to say nothing of killed in those days! In the beginning, the populace of Corfu trusted the judicial (219) investigation and therefore kept order by itself -- the insignificant military detachment stationed in Corfu would not even have initially been able to do so.

But when the future showed that the course of the government was apparently in advance already being subordinated to foreign interests, the people became suspicious. The authorities were accused quite openly of bribery. For example, that the state attorney had first begun his foot-dragging investigation many hours after discovery of the body, had repeatedly allowed himself to be led down blind alleys and thus had lost much precious time. That the Ghetto had not been searched at all, while because of supposed excesses many non-Jews were arrested and were taken away right before the eyes of the Jews.

The Rabbi of Corfu, apparently on instructions, went too far with things: he publicized a declaration manipulated out of the Archbishop of Corfu, which the latter had already given to the notorious Dr. Barth, that the child had been of Jewish extraction and was the natural daughter of the tailor Salomon Sarda. The French Consul Danloux accepted this declaration in accordance with his own wishes. The Archbishop of Zante, Dionysius Latas, also shared the view of the Archbishop of Corfu in full compass. [7]

At the international Congress of Religion at Chicago, Latas later stated the following:

The consequent continuing of these provocations then read: Corfuites killed the child in order to put the Jews under suspicion of perpetrating the deed!

With that, the forbearance of the populace was exhausted. A Good Friday procession attempted to force its way into the Ghetto, in order to compel the surrender of the band of murderers. A reinforced military unit, which had been placed there for the protection of the Ghetto, fired upon the defenseless procession.

Three participants were shot dead, about twelve, of whom some later died, were left behind critically wounded at the site, to the mockery of a raging Jewish mob! For the protection of the Jewish segment of the population, the warships of foreign powers came into the harbor...

A report out of London from 15 May revealed these connections:

In the middle of May 1891, the situation came to a further head. On 15 May it was reported from Athens: "Yesterday a war ship (221) departed for Corfu," and according to a report from Vienna a state of siege had been imposed and the governor and mayors deposed from Corfu due to their alleged "irresolute attitude." -- In Athens "the local German envoy Count Wesdehlen as well as the English envoy" had "longer confidential discussions with the Minister Delyannis." [8]

But International Jewry spun into its web of political machinery not only a commanding admiral, ministers and ministries, but even a king, without, perhaps, the final connections ever becoming clear to him.

In these May days which were critical for Jewry, King George of Greece was sent to Corfu. The Jewish press effusively took note of this "voluntary" decision of the king. The Kreuzzeitung commented on this news as follows: [9]

The paper concluded its report with the words:

-- In this, as in the previous reports, the opinions of the Greek authorities are already being hinted at. The letter of the already several times mentioned Deputy Georgios Zervos gave further information, is simply shocking to read and gives insight into Jewish subversion of the press. Zervos wrote to the Krezzeitung from Corfu: [10]

The fire drummed up by the Jewish news bureaus, or -- as Zervos described this press campaign: "The crusade against everything non-Jewish" -- became, even for the forbearing Greek (224) government, too much in the long run. In the middle of May, 1891, the Kreuzzeitung learned: [12]

Eight days after this government statement the peace of the grave came to Corfu. -- Corfu, 23 May 1891: "The peace remains undisturbed. Several individuals who were distributing provocative placards were arrested..."

The individuals are its own subjects...

And the Jewish murderers?

The "preliminary investigation" was suddenly declared to be ended. This outcome could certainly not be a surprise after the intrigues which preceded it. -- Athens, 24 May 1891:

Only one thing did occur: The Corfuite Jews cheerfully emigrated en masse and thereby they themselves supplied manifest proof of their guilt. While the judicial investigation was still going on, simply enormous payments for the "oppressed, abused Jews of Corfu" arrived from all parts of Europe -- which, however, were paid only to those who resolved to emigrate.

For a few drachmas they sold off their belongings; upon being reproached that by this mass-flight they were indeed documenting their consciousness of guilt, the happy emigrants answered as one, that they had been promised the most far-reaching support in Turkey, in Asia Minor, and in Palestine (!). In response to this, the Kreuzzeitung wrote on its front page of 30 May 1891:

But in the second week of May in this year, which was so painful for Greece, 900 Jews left Corfu, until at the end of June this former Jewish paradise was supposed to have been evacuated!

(226) During these events, Berlin and London bank-Jews continued in an uninterrupted exchange of dispatches with the Greek Finance Minister Karapanos, to the point where the ears of the old telegraph clerks rang! At the end, the Greek government consented to waive the right to any continuing of the trial and to immediately release from custody the Jews charged with the murder, if all Jews would emigrate...

But the following version was stubbornly being claimed in Athens: at the first remonstrances, made in common by the Great Powers, the Greek Minister President Delyannis plainly affirmed the probability of a ritual-crime. But this statement had the effect of a bomb in all circles of European Finance-Jewry!

From every side threats and political repercussions were tried, to move the Minister President to recant. Delyannis remained steadfast and described the fulfillment of this presumptuous demand as a flat impossibility. He hinted that [if this demand were met] still far greater excesses against the Jews living in Greece would probably occur and that his own position would be insecure. But his successor would take over the carrying out of the trial. Under these circumstances a compromise was agreed upon...

For this compromise, also, the Greek government -- and this is the most shameful thing -- had to contribute 120,000 Francs! The Herr Rabbi of Corfu expressed his thanks to Delyannis by telegram:

(227)In the battue against Delyannis, the stock exchange war of the Golden Internationale proved to be most effective. We obtain excellent information about even this from an excerpt from a telegram from Athens of 19 May 1891: [14]

The Kreuzzeitung [15] finally commented:

The Jewish Internationale sacrificed -- if only apparently, as it later turned out -- the Ghetto of Corfu and thereby abandoned at first its key position at one of the most important and most ancient trade and market centers between the Orient and the West, and further sacrificed several millions [in money], in order to make possible the emigration of 6000 of its racial comrades; it spent enormous sums on bribery and pulled out all the stops to confuse and falsify public opinion in Europe; it even brought about the demonstrations by fleets -- in order to conceal that one crime as a ritual-crime, to be able to keep slaughtering non-Jewish humanity without being molested!

After the "conscience of the world" had been lulled to sleep again, high finance no longer contented itself with the success achieved in Greece in 1891.

So as to be able to subsequently glorify the Jewish emigrants as victims of a fanaticized native population, a reopening of the judicial inquiries was staged. We will not go into the details any more closely -- this would only lead to repetitions!

Let only this definitive result be recorded: The four Jews incriminated most seriously, now as before, were officially acquitted at the cost of the state and brought abroad under a Greek safe-conduct. From now on, racial comrades also, who had emigrated perhaps a year earlier, returned to important positions on Corfu and the Ionic islands, after the Greek government, like that of Egypt in its time (1840), entered into the obligation of taking on the protection of its "Jewish citizens"! But a respected Greek politician, conscious of duty to his people, wrote in an open letter to the paper whose publications exposed the Jewish manner of fighting too late, the Kreuzzeitung:

One weak comfort remained to this Greek: the justice of the rest of the European lands had already been delivered up to Jewry...

Copyright 2001 by R. Belser. Reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission of the translator is not permitted. All rights reserved.