6 KILLED IN ATTACK ON JEWS IN PARIS - NYTimes.com6 KILLED IN ATTACK ON JEWS IN PARIS - NYTimes.com




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6 KILLED IN ATTACK ON JEWS IN PARIS


By JOHN VINOCUR, Special to the New York Times


Published: August 10, 1982









PARIS, Aug. 9— 
                    Unidentified gunmen, firing submachine guns and hurling a grenade, attacked a kosher restaurant and passers-by in a Jewish neighborhood at lunchtime here today, killing 6 people and wounding 22.        

                    The police said the attack had been carefully planned and involved as many as five or six assailants. One of them threw a grenade into the restaurant while the rest opened fire on patrons and then fled on foot in the narrow streets between the City Hall and the Place de la Bastille, shooting bursts into doorways and at automobiles.        

                    ''Considering the circumstances and the site of this indescribable action, everything suggests that anti-Semitism was the ugly motive,'' said Interior Minister Gaston Defferre, who visited the area along the Rue des Rosiers after the attack. Mayor Calls Raid 'Horrible'        

                    Mayor Jacques Chirac described the raid as ''horrible'' and said, ''Alas, its racist character appears beyond doubt.'' The assailants escaped, and there was no indication from the police what group might have been behind the attack.  The newspaper France-Soir said it had received a telephone call from an organization called Action Directe claiming responsibility.  But another caller, saying he represented the left-wing group, which has been linked by the police to three other attacks on businesses and people with Jewish connections in recent days, told Agence France-Presse that it was not involved.        

                    The police described the raid as highly organized, involving a group whose goal was said to be killing as many people as possible.  The deaths come at a time of some tension for France's Jews.  France's Jewish population, totaling 700,000, is the world's fourth largest. Many Jews here have felt that the Government has taken a patently pro-Palestinian position on the Israeli siege of Beirut, and that the state television network has favored the Arab side, making little effort to cover the Israeli point of view.        

                    A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy here said, ''These murderous attacks are encouraged by a certain climate of hostile propaganda that is very often clearly anti-Semitic.''        

                    Tonight, when President Francois Mitterrand went to a memorial service at a synagogue on a street near where the attack took place there were angry shouts and shoving between policemen and spectators. Cries of ''Mitterrand treason!'' and ''Mitterrand the killer!'' went up as the President left his automobile. Attackers Called Cowards        

                    After leaving the service, when the crowd had become less aggressive, the President said: ''I've always been and I am a friend of the Jewish community of France. Today a new attack by cowards bloodied this community. I bow to its victims and I say that this fanaticism, like all fanaticism, will find itself having to deal with me.''        

                    The crowd in the street had been tense and at times seething since the attack. Members harassed journalists and painted Stars of David on trucks belonging to the state television network. A man said he felt that French Jews were particularly upset because the authorities had been unable to make any arrests in connection with a bombing in October 1980 that killed four people at the country's largest Reform synagogue in Paris.        

                    The attack today was centered on a restaurant and delicatessen known by the name of its owner as Chez Jo Goldenberg. The restaurant, which specializes in the Jewish cooking of Eastern Europe, is situated on a corner of the Rue des Rosiers, which has been a center of Jewish life in Paris for centuries. The dark, narrow street is now one of small shops, kosher butchers, a synagogue and a ritual bath.        

                    Witnesses offered contradictory accounts of what took place, but there was agreement on a rough outline of events. Shortly after 1 P.M., it was generally agreed, two groups of men arrived at the restaurant, one hurling a grenade through a window and the other opening fire with automatic weapons.        

                    Natali Tvaouri, a restaurant employee, said: ''I was bringing dishes down to the ground floor when I heard a big explosion. When I got to the bottom, I saw one of the terrorists. He had wavy black hair and a light blue jacket. He was about 30, and he was spraying the customers with bullets.        

                    ''I ran to the back and the man saw me and went after me, firing away. I jumped out of a window, and just as I got out a burst shattered it after me.'' Number of Attackers Unclear        

                    The scenes in the street were more difficult to reconstruct. Some witnesses said there only two men, others that there were four, five or six.        

                    Two women talked of having seen two men with guns. One of them said: ''They ran with their machine guns over their shoulders, as if it were all very normal and they had time to stop and pick something up. They had brown hair and what you'd call Mediterranean types.''        

                    A butcher also said he had seen only two attackers. ''They were in a white car that stopped in front of Jo Goldenberg's,'' he said.  ''They looked like Arabs to me. They got out with machine pistols in their hands and started shooting bursts into the restaurant. They came to get themselves some Jews. They shot up everything and then went after the shopkeepers in their shops. They were wild.''        

                    The police offered few specific details but disclosed that a part of the grenade that had been recovered indicated it had been made in Czechoslovakia. 9 of Wounded in Serious Condition        

                    Nine of the wounded persons were reported in serious condition.  Initial identification of the six dead suggested that they were all Paris residents.        







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