Friday 31 January 2014

Jews Flee Venezuela Citing Growing Antisemitism, Lack of Security

FSWC Reports:

From jn1.tv via ynetnews.com:

In Venezuela, violent crime is prompting some of the country's citizens to seek a life abroad. The recent killing of the 2004 Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and her ex-husband in a gun attack on their car has brought into stark relief the security problems facing the country. 

Among those leaving in large numbers are members of Venezuela's Jewish community, who say a lack of personal security, combined with growing anti-Semitism, makes life in the country too hard. 

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Germany to Pay Pension to Jewish Ghetto Workers

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Holocaust survivors who were employed in German Jewish ghettos will now receive a pension from Germany.

After more than a decade of bureaucratic foot-dragging and legal battles, the German government has agreed to pay the monthly pensions of survivors who were employed by the Nazi regime during World War II. 

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Thursday 30 January 2014

Croatia Investigates Alleged Nazi Guard for War Crimes

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

Croatian prosecutors said Thursday they had opened a war crimes investigation into a man suspected of having been a guard in several Nazi concentration camps during World War II. 

German authorities have confirmed the identity of the man who is living in Croatia, said a statement from the state attorney's office. 

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Canadian Designers Win First and Second Place in Poster Exhibition Commemorating Holocaust

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

A special poster exhibition opened this week in the United Nations Information Offices in Vienna, Austria, in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was marked Monday.

The exhibition includes posters created by students of art and design from around the world, including Muslims from Indonesia, who were asked to present their personal interpretation of the memory of the Holocaust.  

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Frenchman Charged with Posting Antisemitic Photos Online

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

French authorities have filed preliminary charges against a website administrator over photos online appearing to glorify a deadly attack on a Jewish school. 

Authorities and anti-racism groups hope cases like this help stanch the spread of a controversial arm gesture known as the "quenelle." Considered by some to be an inverted Nazi salute, it is increasingly being used to express anti-Jewish views.

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Tuesday 28 January 2014

Italian President Condemns Recent Antisemitic Acts

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press and ynetnews.com:

Italy's president has condemned threats against Rome's Jewish community in recent days, including the delivery of packages containing pig heads, as a "miserable provocation that just assaulted all of us."  

President Giorgio Napolitano said Monday during Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations that recent insults to the Jewish community are "comparable only to the repugnant material in those packages."

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Elie Wiesel Says People No Longer Ashamed to be Antisemites

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Prof. Elie Wiesel was supposed to be the keynote speaker at the inauguration ceremony of the new display at the Jewish pavilion in Auschwitz, the place where he was enslaved and lost his loved ones. 

For personal reasons he was unable to attend the important event, but in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate told Ynet about the never-ending struggle against anti-Semitism and the recognition that it would likely never be defeated. 

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Monday 27 January 2014

Hungarian President Acknowledges His Country's Collaboration With Nazis During Holocaust

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Hungarians collaborated with Nazis in sending nearly half a million Jews to their deaths, Hungary's president said on Sunday in a rare public acknowledgement of a war-time past that Jewish groups say is often glossed over.

Earlier on Sunday, an American historian said he was returning an award he received from the previous head of state in protest at what he called the government's attempt to erase Hungary's role in the Holocaust.

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Israeli Members of Parliament Hold Memorial Service at Auschwitz

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

A delegation of 54 Israeli lawmakers travelled to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland on Monday for a special ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp. 

The delegation was to hold a memorial services at the former Nazi death camp and later have an historic Knesset meeting on Polish soil, alongside Polish politicians.

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Sunday 26 January 2014

Israeli Government Releases Report on Global Antisemitism

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Jewish communities around the world are living with a sense of growing anti-Semitism, although 2013 did not record a significant increase in the number of violent attacks on Jews and their property, according to an annual report released by the Israel's Information and Diaspora Ministry. 

The report, which was presented to the cabinet on Sunday by Minister Naftali Bennett, states that "the soul, rather than the body, is the main victim of the new wave of anti-Semitism." According to estimates, the situation on the ground has become much worse.

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Pig's Head Sent to Rome Synagogue

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Offences against Jewish targets in Rome including a pig's head sent to the city's main synagogue caused outrage in Italy on Saturday in the run-up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day next week.

"This is a vile and cowardly act which offends the Jewish community and all Romans on the eve of the memorial day," Nicola Zingaretti, president of Lazio, the region in which the city of Rome is located.

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Nazi Symbols Endure in Austrian Cemetery

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

The marble tombstone looks like others dotting the main cemetery of Graz, Austria's second city – but only at first glance. Carved into it are a swastika and the inscription: "He died in the struggle for a Great Germany." 

Footsteps away, another gravestone is marked with the SS lightning bolts proudly worn by the elite Nazi troops who executed most of the crimes of the Holocaust.

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Hungary Apologizes for Its Role in the Holocaust

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com with contribution from the Associated Press:

For the first time, Hungary has taken responsibility for the role it played during the Holocaust, and apologized before in the UN, Hungary’s UN ambassador Csaba Korosi said. 

“In this form and on behalf of the Hungarian state, nobody had ever expressed in the UN the responsibility of the Hungarian state for (its role in) the Holocaust,” Korosi told Hungarian news agency MTI. 

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Private Correspondence of Nazi Leader Heinrich Himmler Revealed

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

After lying around in a Tel Aviv apartment collecting dust for dozens of years, hundreds of personal letters, pictures and secret journals belonging to Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Final Solution, have been revealed.

The revealing documents, stored in Israeli painter Chaim Rosenthal's apartment, show how on one hand the top Nazi official used an iron fist to send Jews to their death, and on the other hand had a soft touch when dealing with his family, even in the shadow of the mass murder happening around him. 

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Friday 24 January 2014

Nuremberg Trial Documents on Display in Berlin

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

In a typewritten affidavit, former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess admitted that "victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning." In handwritten notes from the 1945 interrogation of Robert Ley, the Nazi official blames Germany for its own defeat, saying the country was "too lazy and too incompetent." 

The documents used by prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials to help convict top Nazis are among a trove of some 500 pages that surfaced last year at a flea market in Tel Aviv. About 20 pages went on display Wednesday at the Berlin Jewish Education Center, where they will be available for the public to see through January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, before they are sold at auction in Israel. 

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Auschwitz Museum Launches Online Holocaust Education Programs in Arabic and Farsi

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

The Auschwitz museum at the site of the former Nazi German death camp in southern Poland said Monday it had launched online Holocaust awareness programs in Arabic and Farsi. 

"We want to address groups of people who often have little knowledge of this subject or who even advocate revisionist views," museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki told AFP.

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European Jews and Muslims Fight Circumcision Ban Together

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Just days before the Council of Europe is scheduled to hold hearings on a controversial resolution supporting banning male circumcision across the continent, a 10-person delegation of Muslim and Jewish clerics met with the organization’s secretary-general, Thorbjorn Jagland. 

The meeting was the first time that Muslim leaders had joined alongside Jewish clerics in lobbying in opposition to the proposed ban and was an initiative of the Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders (GEMJL), an affiliate of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU), which represents imams and rabbis in 25 European countries. 

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Thursday 23 January 2014

Soccer Player to Fight Charges of Using "Quenelle" Salute as an Antisemitic Gesture

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

French footballer Nicolas Anelka on Thursday denied making a controversial goal salute which was condemned as anti-Semitic and vowed to fight charges which could see him banned from the sport.

Anelka, 34, was widely criticised for the 'quenelle' gesture which was popularised by French comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala but described by critics as an inverted Nazi salute. 

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Canadian MP Visiting Holocaust Centre Discovers Photo of His Cousin in Lodz Ghetto

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Candian MP Mark Adler, who arrived in Israel as part of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's delegation, visited the Yad Ezer La’Haver (Helping Hand to a Friend) Holocaust survivor center, where he discovered a picture of his cousin distributing food in Ghetto Lodz. A deeply moved Adler gazed at the picture while shedding tears, and then proceeded to hear stories from survivors.

An exhibition held at the support center shows pictures from different camps and ghettos, including one picture that featured Adler's cousin, Helen Himmel.

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Wednesday 22 January 2014

Police in London, UK Charge Soccer Fans for Chanting "Yid" at Tottenham Games

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

British authorities have charged three football fans with using a derogatory term for Jews at Tottenham matches.

London's Metropolitan Police on Tuesday announced the racially-aggravated charges for causing "harassment, alarm or distress" by using a "threatening, abusive or insulting" word – Yid. 

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Jewish Groups Fear New Memorial in Hungary Will Minimize Role Hungarians Played in Holocaust-Era Deportations

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

Hungarian Jewish groups on Tuesday called for the government to cancel plans to erect a large memorial to the country's March 1944 occupation by Germany. 

Critics see the statue as part of efforts by the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban to blur the responsibility of Hungarian officials and security forces in the deportations of Jews during the Holocaust. 

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Tuesday 21 January 2014

Poland Planning Tourist Route Through Old Jewish Towns

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

Historians are preparing a tourist route leading through about 60 old Jewish towns along Poland's border with Belarus and Ukraine.

The effort will include both on-the-ground sightseeing guides available in late 2015 and online tours with 3-D recreations of synagogues and other places that were destroyed in World War II.

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Pope May Open Holocaust-Era Archives

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Will the Vatican's secret Holocaust-era archives be published? Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a good friend of Pope Francis, says the pontiff is interested in opening the archives on wartime Pope Pius XII. 

Skorka made the comments in an interview to the Sunday Times, but the report has yet to be officially confirmed by the Holy See.  Skorka, a 63-year-old Argentine rabbi, said he discussed the controversial issue of Pius XII with Pope Francis during a week he spent in the papal residence, St. Martha’s House, in September. 

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English Soccer Association Charges Player for Antisemitic "Quenelle" Salute

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

West Bromwich Albion striker Nicolas Anelka was charged by England's Football Association on Tuesday for performing a racially aggravated gesture considered to be anti-Semitic while celebrating a Premier League goal. 

The former France international, who faces a minimum five-game ban under the FA's anti-discrimination sanctions, has until 1800 GMT Thursday to respond to the charge.

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Sunday 19 January 2014

Yad Vashem Recognizes Polish Woman as "Righteous Among the Nations" for Hiding Three Jews in Her Home During WWII

FSWC Reports:

From Tazpit News Agency via ynetnews.com:

Yad Vashem held an event last Thursday posthumously honoring Maria Zurawska as Righteous Among the Nations from Poland. The medal and certificate of honor were accepted by her daughter, Bronislawa Skoczylas, who arrived from Poland to attend the ceremony.  

The ceremony took place in the presence of Polish Ambassador to Israel Jacek Hodorowicz, Jay and Amy Lakritz from the United States, who are children of the late Holocaust survivor Julia Lakritz, Sheldon Haber, the brother of the late Holocaust survivor, two great-granddaughters of the Righteous Among the Nations from Poland, Holocaust survivors, Members of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations, family members and friends. 

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Jewish Groups Outraged by European Authorities' Responses to Antisemitism in Soccer

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com and jn1.tv:

European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor says he is appalled by the lack of reaction by the authorities to recent anti-Semitic incidents in European football, after a municipal prosecutor in the Polish city of Poznan concluded that chants by soccer fans which made reference to Jews going to the Auschwitz gas chambers were not anti-Semitic. 

"Unfortunately, extreme anti-Semitic chants like those in Poznan are regularly heard in many European stadiums, including in England and Holland, and the reaction of the authorities is minimal,” Kantor said. “This coupled with the inaction of the clubs involved, UEFA and the FA in England over the Quenelle, demonstrates that anti-Semitism has become the last acceptable prejudice in football."

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Sponsors of British Soccer Club Threaten to Cancel Sponshorship Deal Over Player's Antisemitic "Quenelle" Salute

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Shirt sponsor Zoopla has warned West Bromwich Albion it will cancel a three million pounds deal with the club if Nicolas Anelka plays against Everton in the Premier League on Monday, British media reported. 

Zoopla, a property website company co-owned by Jewish businessman Alex Chesterman, is unhappy the former France striker has been playing despite making an alleged anti-Semitic ‘quenelle’ gesture in the game with West Ham United three weeks ago.

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Resolution on Ownership of Medieval Art Claimed by Heirs of Holocaust-Era Jewish Art Dealers Remains Elusive

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

It's a medieval treasure trove worth an estimated quarter of a billion dollars, filled with gold crosses studded with gems and intricate silverwork. For years, it's been at the center of a dispute between a Berlin museum foundation and the heirs of Holocaust-era Jewish art dealers. 

On Wednesday, a German government-created commission convened to make a recommendation on who should rightfully own the Welfenschatz – or Guelph Treasure. However, it did not make a final decision.

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Jewish Community in Kiev, Ukraine Demands Greater Security After Increased Antisemitic Attacks

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Anti-Semitic activity in Ukraine appears to be on the rise amid reports of another anti-Semitic attack Friday night.

Dov Ber Glickman, 30, a member of Kiev's Jewish community, was assaulted by three youngsters as he was making his way home from a Shabbat meal at Yeshivat Orach Chaim in the Ukrainian capital's Podil neighborhood. 

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Thursday 16 January 2014

French President Praises Ban on Antisemitic Comedian

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

France will not tolerate any hate speech or acts against Jews, Muslims or Christians, President Francois Hollande said Tuesday, just days after a comic whose sketches were viewed as anti-Semitic was banned from performing. 

Hollande hailed as a "victory" a ban on Dieudonne's sketches initiated by Interior Minister Manuel Valls. The controversial comic has since been forced to cancel a nationwide tour after his attempts to challenge the ban in court failed.

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Wednesday 15 January 2014

Tiny Town in North Dakota Thwarts Takeover Attempt by Neo-Nazis

FSWC Reports:

From BBC News:

Bobby Harper remembers thinking there was something strange about his new neighbour in the tiny rural community of Leith, North Dakota, when they first met.

It was a warm dusk in autumn 2012 on the sleepy town's main road, a gravel path that curls away through wheat fields to the vast Great Plains sky.

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Pew Research Centre Report: Jews, Other Religious Groups Face Growing Discrimination Worldwide

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Violence and discrimination against religious groups by governments and rival faiths have reached new highs in all regions of the world except the Americas, according to a new Pew Research Centre report.

Social hostility such as attacks on minority faiths or pressure to conform to certain norms was strong in one-third of the 198 countries and territories surveyed in 2012, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, it said on Tuesday.
 
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Tuesday 14 January 2014

Nazi-Looted Art May be on Display in Israeli Museums

FSWC Reports:

From jn1.tv via ynetnews.com:

An Israeli agency tasked with tracking down any artwork stolen by the Nazis from Jews has instructed local museums to begin searching their collections as it is believed hundreds of paintings and sculptures may be on display illegally within galleries in the Jewish state. 

"We know that after the war, at least 400 pieces of art paintings reached the shores of Israel and the museums in Israel," says Israel Peleg, director of the Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets.

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Sunday 12 January 2014

Movie About Boy's Struggle to Survive During the Holocaust Debuts in Poland

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

A stirring movie by German Oscar-winning director Pepe Danquart about a Jewish boy struggling to survive the Holocaust had its world premiere in Warsaw on Wednesday. 

A German-French coproduction with mostly Polish actors, "Run, Boy, Run" is the true story of 10-year-old Yoram Friedman who escaped the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 and – hunted by the Nazis – hid in the woods near the city. The child fed on snails and mushrooms, braved winter snow storms and hid in water to avoid Nazi sniffer dogs.

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French Comedian Cancels Show Deemed Antisemitic

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

A French comedian said on Saturday he had dropped a show banned for its anti-Semitic language, and was planning one that would cause no objections.

On Friday, France's highest administrative court upheld a ban on a show by the black comedian Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala in the central city of Tours, days after it was also banned in the western city of Nantes.
 
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Tel Aviv Unveils Memorial Commemorating Gay Holocaust Victims

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

Israel's cultural and financial capital unveiled a memorial Friday honoring gays and lesbians persecuted by the Nazis, the first specific recognition in Israel for non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. 

Tucked away in a Tel Aviv park, a concrete, triangle-shaped plaque details the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people under Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. It resembles the pink triangles Nazis forced gays to wear in concentration camps during World War II and states in English, Hebrew and German: "In memory of those persecuted by the Nazi regime for their sexual orientation and gender identity."

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Israel to Ban Use of Nazi Terms and Symbols

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

The Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved Sunday a bill forbidding the use of Nazi symbols and labels. The bill will be brought before the Knesset on Wednesday. 

MK Shimon Ohayon (Likud-Beiteinu), who proposed the bill, told Ynet: "The rise of neo-Nazi groups that use these symbols poses a danger to Jews around the world, but as long as the State of Israel doesn’t ban them, we cannot complain about their appearance around the world." 

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Friday 10 January 2014

Long-Lost Alfred Hitchcock Documentary on Holocaust to Air on British Television

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Film and television viewers around the world, who are familiar with Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, are in for a surprise: A lost documentary about the Holocaust filmed by the legendary English director will be aired on British television next year. 

The film, "The Memory of the Camps," will be broadcast after being reconstructed by the Imperial War Museum (IWM). 

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Thursday 9 January 2014

Last-Minute Ruling Blocks Show by Comedian Accused of Antisemitism

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

France's top administrative body has turned the tables on a comic who is considered anti-Semitic, ruling in an urgent decision that he cannot perform in the city of Nantes on Thursday night.

The decision by the Council of State in Paris overturned a Nantes court ruling hours earlier that had annulled the ban the city had imposed on the show by Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala. 

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Online Sales of Hitler's Mein Kampf Soar

FSWC Reports:

From The Toronto Star:

There is an unlikely new bestselling author in the world of ebooks, and his name is Adolf Hitler.

On Wednesday, a 99-cent version of Mein Kampf, the Nazi leader’s manifesto, was the top-selling book on iTunes Canada’s politics and current events list. Another edition, selling for $3.99, was in the No. 6 spot.

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French Court Curtails Authorities' Efforts to Ban Show by Comedian Accused of Being Antisemitic

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

A French court threw out efforts by authorities to ban a show on Thursday by a comedian whom the government accuses of insulting the memory of Holocaust victims.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who has been leading the effort to stop a national tour by comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, said he would appeal the ruling.
 
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YouTube Video Shows New Year's Revelers Desecrating German Holocaust Memorial

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

Berlin police say they are considering additional security for Germany's main Holocaust memorial after an online video appeared to show New Year's revelers urinating on the site last week. 

The YouTube video appears to show drunken partygoers relieving themselves and launching fireworks from among the 2,711 concrete blocks commemorating the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.

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Wednesday 8 January 2014

Germans Charge Former SS Member for Taking Part in French Village Massacre

FSWC Reports:

From The Globe and Mail:

German prosecutors have charged an 88-year-old former member of Adolf Hitler’s elite Waffen SS with taking part in a World War Two massacre of hundreds of French villagers, nearly 70 years after one of the most infamous Nazi atrocities.

In the methodical June, 1944, slaughter, SS soldiers took the small village of Oradour-sur-Glane in central France by surprise and killed nearly all its inhabitants within a few hours. They killed 642 men, women and children.

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Cities in France Ban Shows by Comedian Convicted of Hate-Speech Against Jews

FSCW Reports:

From BBC News:

Nantes and Tours have become the latest French cities to ban a show by controversial comic Dieudonne M'bala M'bala.

Dieudonne, who has six convictions for hate speech against Jews, had been due to open his tour in Nantes on Thursday. 

Bordeaux and Marseille had already cancelled performances.

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Case Dropped in Germany Against Former Nazi Officer

FSWC Reports:

From BBC News:

A judge in Germany has closed the murder trial of Dutch-born ex-Nazi officer Siert Bruins, ruling he is free to leave court because of uncertainty surrounding the case.

Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for Bruins, 92, for the murder of a Dutch resistance fighter.

Bruins was an SS volunteer and a member of the Nazi intelligence unit at the time of the killing in September 1944.

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Sunday 5 January 2014

Nazi Hunters Call for Protests Against French Comedian

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

A Nazi-hunting family has called for protests against controversial French comedian Dieudonne over his vitriolic brand of humor targeting Jews, as a government minister said he must pay fines accrued for racist abuse. 

France's Interior Minister Manuel Valls is training his sights on Dieudonne, whose trademark gesture is viewed as being Nazi-inspired, and is examining options to try to legally block performances by a man he brands a "little trader of hate."

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