November 20: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1938, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “BERLIN, NOV. 19 (AP) — Nazi Germany broadened its campaign to eradicate all possible traces of Jewry from national life today amid swift financial, religious and international cross-currents. Protestant churches in some parts of the country were ordered to eliminate the German word ‘Jehovah,’ taken from the Hebrew for God, and Old Testament names of Jewish prophets. Wealthy Jews in Nuremberg, according to advices received in Munich, were forced to sign over 90 percent of their possessions to the German labor front and then told to leave the city within three months. A mass eviction of Jews was reported in Vienna. In Berlin thousands clamored in vain for permission to leave while officials debated ways and means of letting them go. Lay teachers of religion in public schools asked that pastors and priests assume such instruction. They explained no German teacher could interest Nordic pupils in ‘Jew-written Psalms’ and Old Testament history. A police order was issued today forbidding Jews to use bridle paths.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Eagle reported, “Organization of citizens into neighborhood groups of vigilantes to combat the rising crime wave in Brooklyn was suggested informally in Police Department circles today. As three more major crimes, including a stickup and two robbery assaults, were added to the borough crime toll, police officials, who for obvious reasons cannot be identified, cited the following facts in urging formation of the private vigilantes: 1 — The department is 4,000 men short and cannot effectively oppose the lawless wave; 2 — There are 2,500 names on the present Civil Service list for the department, but only two-thirds of them have passed examinations, and a great many of these are in the armed forces; 3 — It would take nine to ten months before patrolmen could be appointed from a new list; 4 — Appointment of official Sheriff’s deputies will not solve the problem, for they use their authority excessively. However, as one detective pointed out, ‘There is nothing to prevent home owners and residents from banding together and forming their own patrol system. There is nothing to prevent a man from hiring a club for himself and using it in his defense. Groups of citizens could take a block and properly patrol it in two and three-hour tours of duty.’”
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.