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Three Jews physically attacked outside Kosher restaurant in Vienna

A 24-year-old man of Turkish origin has allegedly physically assaulted three Jews outside a kosher restaurant in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district.

Witnesses have said that the alleged assailant jumped the victims, pushing one to the ground before raining down blows on them.

One victim, Daniel, told Heute “I had just walked out of the synagogue and I had my kippah and Tefillin [phylacteries] on, so I was easily recognizable as a Jew. He came at me from behind while I was on my phone and didn’t see him. He jumped me from behind”

The victims were lightly injured, but have expressed how glad they are that the attacker was not armed.

The attacker left the scene and proceeded to attack a bystander, before he was eventually subdued and apprehended by police.

 

 

 

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Austrian man accused of shouting “Sieg Heil” and performing Nazi salute at Rabbi

A 49-year-old Austrian man has been arrested for allegedly shouting “Sieg Heil” and performing a Nazi salute, both of which he directed at a Rabbi.

The man is also accused of shouting “Mein Volk, Mein Reich, mein Fuhrer”, a motto of the Nazi regime.

The Rabbi was visiting the town of Ebensee for Holocaust Memorial Day. Ebensee has a memorial for the victims of the camp to which his family members were deported.

Austria has strict laws on expressing support for Nazism. However, concerns of antisemitism and far-right extremism have been growing with the ascendancy of the far-right Freedom Party into government, albeit as a junior partner in coalition.

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Anti-Israel protesters in Austria chant “slaughter the Jews”

In the latest of a series of incidents of serious antisemitism at anti-Israel protests, open incitement to violence has been caught on film at a protest in Austria.

Footage that shows protesters chanting “slaughter the Jews” has just been brought to our attention.

The protest took place on Friday afternoon, following Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

A page called “BDS Austria” also shared a video in which the same chants were clearly audible.

Protesters in New York have also called for violence against Jews in the past week, and in Sweden chants of “we are going to shoot the Jews” could be heard in a protest that was followed by a disgraceful fire bomb attack on a Synagogue.

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Jewish students in Austria seeking legal action against student leaders who mocked Holocaust

Benjamin Hess, President of the Union of Jewish Austrian University Students, the main representative group for Jewish students in Austria, has revealed that the organisation will be seeking legal action after two secret groups were revealed to have contained worrying antisemitic rhetoric.

The Facebook group “FVJUS Men’s Collective” and the Whatsapp group “Badass warlords” both contained antisemitism. They included pictures of a pile of ashes captioned “Leaked Anne Frank nudes!” and a picture of Hitler with the caption “Hey. I just met you and this is crazy, but here’s your number…So Auschwitz, maybe?”

There is also a picture of Hitler with the caption “you can’t be racist if there is no other race”, clearly making light of the attempts to exterminate non-“Aryans”.

A gallery of some of the content, which also includes misogynistic and Islamophobic rhetoric, can be viewed here.

Benjamin Hess said that the content should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.

Most worryingly, many of the group’s participants were student leaders, notably student leaders of the Conservative Austrian People’s Party at the University of Vienna, where Hess is a student. The CAPP are a centre-right party in Austria, but many of the nation’s future leaders will come through the ranks of the University of Vienna.

Following student elections, Hess said that he was “shocked” that the people in question had not lost their seats as a result of their bigoted discourse. Despite a demonstration involving 200 people, the University of Vienna seems to have taken no serious action against the culprits. It is however very encouraging to see people turn out to show solidarity with Jewish students.

Hess commented that “this scandal goes beyond just the students, because it is known that participation in the students’ union and the Conservative student party is the first step to a larger career. These people go on to be the country’s leaders”.

Whilst the content in the group may have been made without malicious intent, it demonstrates a lack of concern for rising antisemitism and the experiences of Jewish and other minority students. More worrying is the failure of the University to take disciplinary action and the re-election of the students involved, both of which communicate to all involved that antisemitism is an acceptable part of academic life.

 

 

 

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Austrian man jailed after circulating Nazi propaganda, uploading image of “Heil Hitler” cat

An Austrian man has been jailed for 18 months after posting various images online which were deemed to constitute “far-right propaganda”. He was charged under Austria’s 1947 anti-Nazi Prohibition Act, which bans material deemed to be attempting to glorify Nazism.

The 38-year-old from Salzburg was found guilty of uploading over 20 images deemed neo-Nazi propaganda onto the internet. One of the images was a cat allegedly performing a Nazi salute.

Police also found clothes with Nazi symbols in the man’s house.

 

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Austrian state prosecutor rules it is “plausible” that Holocaust survivors constituted a “plague” on residents near concentration camps

The prosecution service for the city of Graz, Austria has made a statement that far-right magazine Die Aula was justified in describing liberated prisoners from the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp as a “plague”.

Over the summer, Die Aula wrote, “The fact that a non-negligible portion of freed prisoners became a plague on people is deemed by the judiciary to have been proven and is only disputed today by concentration camp fetishists.”

Mauthausen was one of the largest slave camp complexes in the German-controlled areas of Europe, with four main sub-camps at Mauthausen and nearby Gusen, and nearly 100 other sub-camps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The death toll remains unknown, although most sources place it between 122,766 and 320,000 for the entire complex.

Prosecution services initiated legal proceedings against Die Aula on grounds of Holocaust denial and inciting hatred but later dropped the charges. In their statement on the decision, they wrote “It is plausible that the release of several thousand people from the Mauthausen concentration camp presented a burden to the affected areas of Austria.”

Last week, Graz was the location of an act of vandalism against a Holocaust memorial.

Sources: ReutersWikipedia

 

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Further reports of vandalism against ‘Stolperstein’ Holocaust memorials in Austria

‘Stolperstein’ Holocaust memorials in Graz, Austria, have been vandalised. Police believe the memorials were desecrated with acid or abrasive paint. The matter is now under investigation.

This is the fourth report of vandalised Stolpersteine over the last five months, bringing the total of defaced or stolen Stolpersteine to 42 since October.

The incident in Austria also appears not to be a one-off. Stolpersteine were similarly attacked with an acidic substance in February and March of last year.

Hanno Wisiak, the deputy mayor of Graz, remarked that the political climate there was becoming toxic and the presence of the far-right threatening.

Source: CFCA/Steiermark

 

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Austrian MP expelled from party after thanking antisemite for “taking the words right out of my mouth”

Facebook user Kehlmann Hans-Jörn wrote on Freedom Party of Austria MP Susanne Winter’s Facebook page: “The Zionist money Jews are the global problem. Europe, and in particular Germany, are now getting what they deserve from Zionist Jews, particularly rich Zionist Jews in the USA, for the century-long persecution of Jews in Europe. According to the Zionists, Europe, particularly Germany, should be cut off as economic competitors to the US.”

Winter responded: “It is great. You took the words right out of my mouth. There are a lot of things that I am not allowed to write. Therefore I’m even more pleased with courageous, independent people.”

After an outcry, Winter apparently deleted the comments and posted: “For me antisemitic ideas have always been repugnant and I don’t support these ideas… I apologise for letting the statements of this visitor to remain on my page instead of immediately deleting them. Yes, that was a mistake, but every person makes mistakes.”

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Austrian “documentary” claims Rothschilds behind “asylum industry”

The far-right Austrian Unzensuriert website has claimed that “the Rothschilds”, used as a euphemism for Jewish financial power, is behind what it calls the “asylum industry”.

 

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Austrian footballer plays in socks bearing neo-Nazi code for “Heil Hitler”

A player for Askö Wölfnitz has drawn the number 88 on each sock. The number is commonly used by neo-Nazis to mean “Heil Hitler”, as the letter ‘H’ is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 means “HH” or “Heil Hitler”. The player is reported to have said that it is a Chinese lucky number. However other reports say that he beat his chest with his fist and then raised his arm in a Nazi salute. Austrian football bodies are considering the case.

Photo: Peter Rustia/Kleine Zeitung

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Austrian Jewish graveyard desecrated with swastikas

Graves in the Jewish cemetery of Hohenems have been vandalised with swastikas. Local police are investigating.