Report of Anti-Semitic Incidents - Jul-98

Report of Anti-Semitic Incidents - July, 1998

General

There was a noticeable increase in anti-Semitic manifestations in Australia, related to the rise of the right-wing 'One Nation' party and the publication by a Jewish community leader of a list of 2000 members of the party connected with radical right-wing bodies.

In Britain the harassment of Jews and Jewish institutions continues, apparently by individuals.

Anti-Semitic Incidents

Britain - Youths threw a stone at the entrance door of the Maccabi building in Glasgow, Scotland. The stone had been taken out of the top layer of stones from the building entrance.

During the month, a number of break-ins of Jewish community buildings occurred in various cities. The background to this is unclear

Unknown persons broke into a hut belonging to the Newbury Park synagogue in Essex. The background to the incident is unknown.

Two windows in the Hillel building in Manchester were smashed. The reason for the action is unclear.

Unidentified persons broke into a hut in the yard of the Menorah kindergarten in London. The reason for the incident is unclear.

Unknown persons broke into the Jewish youth center in Hove in East Sussex. The trespassers broke in through the building's emergency door and stole a menorah on display. They also tried to enter the building's main office. The background to the action is unclear.

A window was broken in the Sarah Tankel House in London. It was apparently caused from the firing of an air rifle. The reason for the incident is unclear.

In the Richmond area of Kew Gardens in London a violent incident occurred. While a Jew was coming out of his car to examine another vehicle which had hit him, the other driver came over to him, spat at him and told him that he was apparently a Jew since he had a big nose.

When a woman employee in an office asked a construction worker who had parked in the building's parking lot to move his vehicle, the man began to curse her and made the Nazi salute. He also threatened to break the window of the company manager's car while calling him a 'fat Jew'.

A Jew was attacked while leaving the 'Yosef Hai' synagogue in the Hendon neighbourhood in London.

Switzerland - A dummy explosive charge was found at the entrance to the reform synagogue in Geneva after the Friday night prayer service.

Germany - The main memorial site of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany was desecrated and destroyed. Unknown persons caused heavy damage to the statue in the entrance plaza. Many acts against memorial sites in concentration camps in Germany have been carried out recently by unknown persons. It is assessed that these are actions of persons from the radical right wing and Neo-Nazis.

Poland - Unknown persons damaged some 20 gravestones of Jews at the Palmiry site near Warsaw. The Nazis murdered many Jews at this site in World War II.

Serbia - Swastikas and abusive slogans were drawn on the walls of the Belgrade synagogue. The synagogue also serves as a Jewish community center in Belgrade and the Jewish Students' Association conducts social activities there. It is also the only synagogue in former Yugoslavia which has ongoing activities.

Russia - Unidentified persons desecrated 30 gravestones in the Vostryakovo cemetery.

Belarus - 97 gravestones were desecrated in the Asawtsy cemetery in the city of Gomel. This cemetery has not been in use for a number of years.

Australia - Anti-Semitic mail was received by the Masada congregation in Sydney. The mail also included a small bottle of liquid which according to the sender's statements was poison.

Threats

Belgium - An anonymous threatening letter was received by a senior member of the Jewish congregation in Brussels. The letter said that an attack had been planned on one of the Jewish installations in the city.

Australia - Hundreds of phone calls, some of them threatening, were received by the Australian Israel and Jewish Affairs Council in Melbourne following the publication by the leader of the Jewish community of a list of 2000 members of the Australian 'One Nation' radical right-wing party, This members have ties with with radical right-wing bodies.

Five threatening phone calls were received in the offices of the 'Australia/Israel Review' newspaper in Melbourne. In all the conversations the speaker threatened to blow up the newspaper offices or attack one of the journalists.

22 anti-Semitic threatening phone calls were received in Sydney during one week. The calls were received by Jewish organizations and one of the calls was received in a Jewish home. The conversations were Nazi-type and racist and in some of them it was said that it was a shame Hitler did not finish his work.

Anti-Semitic and Racist Propaganda

Britain - An anti-Semitic poster was found hung on the bulletin board of the UJS Jewish students' organization in Nottingham. It was entitled 'Jewish Racism Towards Non-Jews as It Appears in the Talmud'.

On the Heathrow airport bulletin board a page was hung which said 'The last day will not come till all Jews are dead'.

A swastika was drawn and 'Nazi Waste' was written on a truck coming to collect equipment from a Jewish school in London.

An anti-Semitic letter was received by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Caricatures of Jews and various Nazi symbols appeared in the letter as well as the sentence, 'Fuck you Jew. Juden raus'.

On the outside wall of a Jew's apartment in South Harrow a swastika was drawn and on it was hung an unidentified metal object. Another swastika had been drawn in the same place two weeks before.

In the vacation resort belonging to a Jewess, swastikas were drawn on the fence and the trees, as well as the sentences 'Yids out' and 'Rabbi, go home'. Unknown persons had placed the head of a pig in the same place in the past.

Two anti-Semitic envelopes were received during the month at the Board offices in London containing the booklet 'Holocaust News'. Anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial texts were written on the envelopes.

Italy - Neo-Nazi graffiti was seen on the walls of the public washrooms in the Fiumicino airport in Rome.

Serbia - Following the new University Law, academic institutions, including the University of Belgrade, were subordinated to the political establishment. As a result the dean and heads of faculties were appointed by the ruling parties, including the radical right-wing Seselj party. This month the dean of the Faculty for Language Studies (a Seselj party representative) declared that his goal was to 'fight Jewish elements, homosexuals and lesbians in the faculty'.

Russia - The burial ceremony for the Russian Czar's family was supposed to be a national reconciliation event. However, according to the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, various elements in the media, the orthodox church and supporters of the royal family revived the use of old anti-Semitic expressions and claims that many of the Bolsheviks who conspired to murder the Czar's family were Jews, including the head of the firing squad. It was also claimed that Jewish money financed the 1917 revolution.

U.S. - A huge swastika was cut into a corn field in a farm in Washington township in the state of New Jersey.

China - Video games on the Holocaust were sold in shops at the international airport in Beijing.

Australia -In Melbourne a swastika and anti-Semitic symbol were carved in the window of a shop owned by a Jewish woman.

A swastika and anti-Semitic graffiti were drawn in a Brisbane suburb.

On the wall of the Jewish Federation building in Sydney a sticker was found with a swastika and the words 'Hitler was right' written on it.

Anti-Semitic stickers of the White Aryan Resistance organization were found on the Jewish Museum building in Sydney.

Anti-Semitic letters were received by the Australian Israel and Jewish Affairs Council in Melbourne. One of the letters was received through e-mail.

13 anti-Semitic letters were received through e-mail - 10 in Jewish institutions and 3 in private Jewish homes in Sydney. The letters had Nazi overtones and some of them contained Holocaust denial material.

Five accusatory letters with Nazi overtones were sent to various Jewish institutions and to the home of a Jewish family in Sydney.

Five anti-Semitic phone calls were received in Queensland by two Jewish leaders. In one of the phone calls the woman speaker denounced the publication of the list of people supporting the One Nation right-wing party (while noting the connections of those people to radical right-wing groups).

At the One Nation Internet site, it was written that the Australian Jewish community is an 'elitist and racist community'.

The Australian Islamic newspaper 'Moharer Al-Australi' supported the anti-Jewish declarations of the Malaysian prime minister who accuses the Jews of the economic problems in Asia.

The 'CDL Report' published an article denouncing Zionism and claiming that the Jews organize visits to their 'Holocaust Disneyland' - Yad Vashem.

The 'Intelligence Survey' wrote that the Jews work to preserve the 'monstrous German Holocaust myth' for their own needs. Another article claims that Zionist money controls Rupert Murdoch and world banking.

Struggle Against Anti-Semitism

Guatemala - The intervention of official elements led to stopping the broadcast of advertisements on local television involving the perverted use of scenes from the film 'Schindlers List'. Against the background of scenes of Jews running to the trains leaving for the camps, the sound track calls on people to come and enjoy new modern theaters after waiting in line all their lives.

Argentina - The government and the public has recently been calling for steps to combatanti-Semitism and racism in Argentina. Worth mentioning are the following measures:

a. The establishment of an office for the surveillance of Neo-Nazi groups. This office is composed of representatives of the federal police, the Attorney- General, the Institute Against Discrimination (INADI) and the Committee for Human Rights (APDH).

b. The signing of an agreement between the Argentinean government and the Ministries of Justice of Germany, the U.S. and Israel for capturing Nazi war criminals.

c. The establishment of an office/branch of INADI in the city of Bariloche.

d. The filing of a complaint against a judge in Bariloche accused of discrimination and anti-Semitic expressions.

Lithuania - The Lithuanian authorities reported that the pardons granted in 1990 to 22 Lithuanians were canceled after an examination revealed that they had collaborated in the murder of Jews in World War II. The advisor to the president of Lithuania, however, noted that he did not know if any of those persons was still alive.

Switzerland - The district court of the city of Baden convicted a Swiss Holocaust denier and German publisher of denying the Holocaust and breaking the law against racism and sentenced both of them. The Swiss Holocaust denier from the city of Basel, Jurgen Graf, was sentenced to 15 months prison and the German publisher Gerhard Foerster to 12 months prison. Each one was also fined 8000 Swiss francs and they were required to return the revenues from the sale of books totalling 55000 Swiss francs. During the course of the trial, both continued to deny the existence of the gas chambers in the Nazi death camps and the number of Holocaust victims. This was the heaviest sentence given in Switzerland since the passing of the law against racism was passed in 1995.

Australia - From the Internet it transpires that sometime in June the Adelaide educational television was supposed to screen a film on Auschwitz which was produced by the director of the 'Adelaide Institute', the well-known Holocaust denier Frederick Toben. He claimed that the film proved there had never been any gas chambers in Auschwitz. Following pressure by the Jewish community the program was cancelled three hours before the scheduled broadcast. The community threatened that if the movie were shown it would file a suit in accordance with the South Australian law against the dissemination of racial hatred. A fine according to that law could amount to 40,000 Australian dollars.

Miscellaneous

Poland - More than 50 crosses were installed outside the Auschwitz extermination camp as part of a public campaign conducted by the Catholic church in Poland to have Christian symbols on the premises. The Jewish community vehemently objects to this. Auschwitz has already become the focus of confrontation between Jews and Christians for some time now. The Jews regard the place as the largest Jewish graveyard in the world. The Christians claim that they are also entitled to mourn and worship at the site where at least 150,000 Christians were murdered. The Chief Rabbi of Poland claimed that as a result of the presence of the crosses in Auschwitz Jews are unable to pray there.

Sweden - The Swedish foreign minister announced that the government would allocate five million Swedish kronor to establish a center for Holocaust research at the University of Uppsala and eight million Swedish kronor for a fund for those persecuted by the Nazis.

The Committee for Jewish Property in Sweden during World War II' published an interim report on Nazi gold and the Riksbank Central Bank of Sweden. The major new finding of this report is that gold stolen from Jews by the Nazis (and others) may have been included in some of the gold shipments that the Central Bank of Sweden received from the Reichsbank of Nazi Germany.