Gummersbach (Northrhine-Westphalia), Germany: Antisemitic Attack on Youth; Serious Allegations Against Police

July 20, 2008.

During the night of July 19/20, four men armed with knives brutally attacked a 17 year old boy of Jewish background. During a birthday party at a sports field, the perpetrators kicked the boy’s head and neck while screaming: “You dirty Jewish pig (Du dreckige Judensau)!” » Read more.

Lausanne, Switzerland: Antisemitic Lampoons Put Up Near the Station

July 16, 2008.

According to the daily newspaper “Le Matin” antisemitic lampoons have been repeatedly put up since some time in the area near Lausanne’s train station.

Source: Chrono.gra.ch, 07-16-2008

Ivanovo, Russia: Swastika Painted on Door of Jewish Leader

July 15, 2008.

On July 15th, an unidentified person painted a swastika on the door of the leader of the Ivanovo Jewish Community in Russia. According to the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, Ervin Kirshtein, the Jewish community leader, expressed doubt that local prosecutors would identity the culprit. The local prosecutors have failed to find the perpetrators of several recent racist incidents including vandalism of 60 gravestones in a Muslim cemetery and antisemitic graffiti throughout the city.

Source: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, 07-16-2008

Poltava, Ukraine: Holocaust Memorial Vandalized

July 14, 2008.

According to a report in the Versiya newspaper, the Holocaust memorial in Poltava was vandalized. The article in Versiya used euphemistic language, stating that “a Ukrainian national symbol and insulting words directed against several ethnic groups” were painted on the monument. The monument sits on the site of the mass murder of 3,000 Jews on November 23, 1941 as well as 5,000 other victims throughout the period of Nazi occupation.

Source: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, 07-15-2008

Berlin, Germany: Swedish Extremist buys Villa for Organizing European Activities

July 12, 2008.

As the German magazine “Der Spiegel” reported on July 12th, Patrik Brinkmann, a leading right-wing extremist from Sweden bought a villa for 3.3 million Euros in the Berlin upper class neighborhood of Zehlendorf. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz - German domestic intelligence service), fears that Europe-wide Neo-Nazi activities might be orchestrated from here.

Brinkmann is described as a leading figure of international right-wing extremism and as having close ties to the German right-wing extremist party NPD. Officially, Brinkmann bought the estate as an agent for his wife Svetlana and talked of a “private buy”.

Source: Spiegel-online, 07-12-2008

Frankfurt (Oder) (Brandenburg), Germany: Burglary and Threats Against Jewish Community

July 12, 2008.

During the night of July 11/12, unknown perpetrators broke into the Jewish community center of Frankfurt on the Oder, stole a computer with the personal data of community members from the community chairman’s office as well as 400 Euros and a check book from the bookkeeper’s office. Initially, police were reluctant to assume political motivation for the crime, although two days before the break-in the community had received an anonymous letter with a swastika and rude threats. According to its chairman the community received three similar threats since the beginning of the year. After the press was informed of the housebreaking, Frankfurt’s mayor Martin Patzelt expressed his outrage and asked police about the state of inquiries. Only then police started to investigate “in all direction”.

Source: Märkische Oderzeitung, 07-13-2008

Ukraine: Paper Refers to Jews as “Satanic”

July 12, 2008.

The July 12th issue of Redaktor, the newspaper of the Plast National Scout Organization of Ukraine, referred to Jews as “satanic” according to a UCSJ monitor. Apparently, the youth group said that “the people’s music festival of Ukrainian music” became a “place where the enemies of the Ukrainian people committed their satanic rights,” complaining that Jews were included in the festival. Plast, the group responsible for these comments, was recognized last year as “the best public organization in Ukraine active in the patriotic education of youth.”

Source: JTA, 07-20-2008

Leeds, UK: Holocaust Denier Convicted for Attempting to Incite Racial Hatred Online

July 11, 2008.

Simon Sheppard was convicted on nine counts of “publishing racially inflammatory written material” on his website which reportedly attracts 4,000 visitors every day. Sheppard claims that Holocaust stories are “exaggerated.” The controversial articles which appeared on his website included four written by Stephen Whittle, also convicted on four counts of racially inflammatory written material, as well as an article written by George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party in the 1960s, and a cartoon from American Robert Crumb. Sheppard defended himself by claiming that the articles were meant to “satirize” being politically correct.

Source: Yorkshire Post, 07-12-2008

Chita, Russia: Editor Charged With Extremism for Antisemitic Articles

July 10, 2008.

Alexander Yaremenko, editor of the local branch of the Union of Russian People’s publication, was charged with extremism after his newspaper published many antisemitic articles. The official charges, which were approved on July 10th, referred to articles from an issue of the newspaper printed this past February. Consequently, the paper’s property has now been seized. In April, an aid to the prosecutor told reporters that the newspaper “justified superiority of one nationality over another or inferiority of several ethnicities,” therefore justifying the prosecutions’ allegations that the paper’s article were antisemitic in nature.

Source: JTA, 07-14-2008

Orenburg, Russia: Slovenian Soccer Team Photographed Raising Hands in Nazi Salute

July 10, 2008.

Members of the NK Maribor Slovenian soccer team were photographed holding fan signs for the Hapoel Tel Aviv Team and raising their hands in a Nazi salute. The Slovenian team was in Israel for a training match against the Tel Aviv team. The photographs were published in the Israeli media. Zlatko Zahovic, the manager for Maribor issued a public apology “to the Tel Aviv team and the entire Jewish people.” He promised to involve the police and kick those who participated in the photographs out of the Maribor team.

Source: Sports5.co.il, 07-10-2008

Elmshorn (Schleswig-Holstein), Germany: Jewish Chapel Vandalized

July 09, 2008.

On July 9th unknown perpetrators damaged the door of a chapel on the old Jewish cemetery in Elmshorn (district of Pinneberg, near Hamburg). Just recently the Jewish community center in Pinneberg was also vandalized. The National Association of Jewish Communities of Schleswig-Holstein said the attack was antisemitic in nature. The police are investigating the incident.

Source: Die Tageszeitung, 07-10-2008

Berlin, Germany: High Rise in Right-Wing-Extremist Violence in Germany

July 09, 2008.

According to a report by the German Ministry of the Interior, German police registered 98 right-wing acts of violence resulting in a total of 103 people injured in May 2008. Numbers are suspected to grow even higher due to the late registration of many incidents. Nevertheless, these numbers are the highest preliminary monthly numbers since 2002. The Ministry of the Interior views the development with “great concern,” a spokesman said.

Source: Der Tagesspiegel, 07-09-2008

Orenburg, Russia: Synagogue Vandals Detained

July 09, 2008.

According to a July 9th article in Yaik, a local newspaper in Orenburg, Russia, three young men were detained in connection with the April vandalizing of the Orenburg synagogue. When police searched the apartment of one of the suspects, they found extremist pamphlets. If the suspects are convicted under the hate crimes laws, they could receive up to four years in prison for the swastikas and death threats that were painted on the walls of synagogue.

Source: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, 07-15-2008

Berlin, Germany: National Holocaust Memorial Besmirched

July 08, 2008.

On the evening of July 8th, a security guard found an intoxicated man spray-painting four slabs of the Holocaust memorial in central Berlin. The man was 28 years old and from Saxony, a part of the former GDR. According to police statements the man sprayed words and symbols with antisemitic and neo-Nazi meanings. The Holocaust memorial is the main memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Germany. Vandalism has been reported there several times.

Sources: Bild.de, 07-09-2008, Welt-Online, 07-09-2008

Lviv, Ukraine: Holocaust Memorial Vandalized

July 08, 2008.

At the Kleparov train station in Lviv, a memorial plaque identifying the station as the location through which the Nazis shipped 500,000 Jews to death camps in Poland was vandalized on July 8th. According to the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ), a group of Jewish tourists noticed that someone had painted a hangman and a Star of David on the memorial plaque. The UCSJ reports that it is not clear if police are investigating the crime.

Source: UCSJ, 07-08-2008

Lviv, Ukraine: Ukrainian Politician Called for a Purge of Jews in His Country

July 01, 2008.

In a speech on July 1st Oleg Tyagnybok, a former member of President Viktor Yushchenko’s parliamentary faction “Our Ukraine,” called for “merciless” action against Jews and Russians who seized power in Ukraine. Tyagnybok, who was expelled from the “Our Ukraine” faction in 2004 for using antisemitic slogans, heads the nationalistic Freedom Party which holds several seats in the Lviv regional parliament.

Source: JTA, 07-03-2008

Blagoveshchensk, Russia: Court Gives Suspended Sentence; Fails to Take Real Action Against Racist Extremists

June 30, 2008.

Three extremists who tried to incite violence against Jews and other minorities received suspended sentences in Blagoveshchensk, Russia. The three culprits were members of the Union of the Russian People, a group named after the organization that murdered Jews at the end of the Tsarist empire. According to the UCSJ, prosecutors showed that the three extremists “regularly incited hatred against Jews and planned to arm themselves to ‘take action’ against them.” The court, however, failed to give the defendants real prison time.

Source: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, 07-1-2008

Berdichev, Ukraine: vandal who defaced the grave of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak sentenced

June 26, 2008.

The vandal who defaced Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s grave by painting swastikas and neo-Nazi slogans on the mausoleum received a year and a half year prison sentence for the crime. He was charged with “desecrating graves” under the Ukranian Criminal Code, a crime not defined as a hate a crime.

Source: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, 06-27-2008

Paris, France: Charges against antisemitic comedian upheld by appeals court

June 26, 2008.

On June 26th a Paris appeals court upheld the 7000 € fine that French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala received in 2007 for antisemitic remarks at a 2005 press conference in Algeria. He was originally found guilty of “complicity to slander a group of persons on the grounds of race, religion, or origin.” In his remarks he referred to Holocaust remembrance as “memorial pornography.”

Source: Le Monde, 06-28-2008

Berlin, Germany: Iran’s Dr. Muhammad Javad Ardashir Larijani denies Israel’s right to exist and the Shoah at a Berlin conference

June 25, 2008.

During a Transatlantic Conference on the Middle East organized by the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt Iran’s former deputy minister of foreign Affairs, Dr. Muhammad Javad Ardashir Larijani, said that “Israel represents a plan to create a Jewish State in the heart of the Muslim world and that this Zionist plan has failed terribly and only caused horrible damages” and that “denial of the Holocaust in the Muslim world has nothing to do with antisemitism.”» Read more.