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Survey: Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Germany
AP, Sep, 10, 2002
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/
BERLIN – A new survey showing that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Germany has been released as the country witnessed its third anti-Semitic attack in a week. The vandalization of a Jewish cemetery in the town of Buetzow in northeastern Germany was apparently carried out by neo-Nazi elements, police said yesterday.
The survey of 1,001 people in eastern Germany and 1,050 in the west also found that more than a quarter of people said they believe Jewish influence is too great and 17 percent of Germans believe Hitler would be viewed as a great statesman if it weren’t for the Holocaust of 6 million Jews.
In one finding that contradicts popular perceptions, researchers at the University of Leipzig and Berlin’s Free University said the increase in anti-Semitic feelings was greater in western Germany than in the former communist east.
“The question is why is there such a rise in the west?” said Elmar Braehler of Leipzig University. “One could say that the West Germans always thought this but it was taboo – we don’t know for sure.”
Increased tensions in the Middle East and open criticism of Israel could be behind the loosening of inhibitions in expressing anti-Semitic sentiment, he said.
The number of respondents who agreed with that view in the west was 19 percent – up 5 percent from 1994. Eastern respondents remained steady at 8 percent. The survey had a margin of error of less than 2 percentage points.
Diedre Berger, Berlin director of the American Jewish Committee, said the survey backs up statistically what Jewish organizations have observed anecdotally for several years.
“The problem of right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism in western Germany has sometimes been given less attention due to the continuing acute violence in eastern Germany, but just because there is less violence in western Germany doesn’t mean that there is not a problem with anti-Semitic and right wing extremist attitudes,” Berger said.
Despite Germany’s efforts to confront the Holocaust, Berger said anti-Semitism in society has been overlooked.
“I think it’s time to start confronting the fact that anti-Semitic cliches and metaphors have been ingrained in German and European society and should be addressed,” Berger said.
In findings that support that, some 28 percent said Jewish influence too great, while another 32 percent partially agreed. Overall, 53 percent of the respondents either agreed or partially agreed with the statement that “more than others, Jews cheat and use tricks in their work in order to get what they want.”
10,000 euro reward
Reward for information on Holocaust museum vandals German authorities have posted a 10,000 euro reward for clues leading to an arrest in the worst anti-Semitic attack on a Holocaust memorial in a decade, the firebombing of a museum honoring the victims of a Nazi death march.
The attack Thursday night destroyed the main exhibition of the death march museum in the Belower Woods, which detailed how the Nazis drove concentration camp inmates deeper into Germany as the Soviet Army advanced at the end of World War II.
Outside the museum, vandals painted a big red swastika and two SS symbols on a memorial, and an anti-Semitic slogan one meter high and six meters long along the base of a large memorial column.
More than 45,000 prisoners were forced to march from Ravensbrueck and Sachsenhausen, both in Brandenburg state, were gathered in the Belower Woods near Wittstock, 100 kilometers (65 miles) northwest of Berlin, where 700-800 died of exhaustion and hunger within a few days.
The area had not seen such a serious attack on a Holocaust site since 1992, when neo-Nazis burned the rebuilt prisoner barracks inside the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin.
At the cemetery in Buetzow, gravestones were overturned or damaged with a hammer, and the Nazi swastika was painted in red on the gravestones. Police said there was no trace of the attackers.
In Grevesmuehlen, a Jewish memorial stone was painted over with Nazi symbols on Thursday, while a memorial to the victims of a Nazi concentration camp death march in the town of Below was badly damaged in an arson attack late Wednesday.
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