German neo-Nazis attack Jewish memorial
Source: Reuters
(Updates with prosecutors to issue arrest warrants para 7) By Erik Kirschbaum BERLIN, Nov 10 (Reuters) - German neo-Nazis, some shouting "Sieg Heil", rampaged in the eastern city of Frankfurt on Oder and destroyed wreaths placed to mark the anniversary of the 1938 Nazi pogrom against the Jews, police said on Friday. A police spokeswoman said the group had launched an attack on Thursday evening, shortly after a memorial service by community and Jewish leaders at a monument for a destroyed synagogue. The neo-Nazis trampled floral wreaths placed at a memorial stone to the synagogue in the city on the Polish border that was destroyed 68 years ago in the Nazis' Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass", police said. They threw away candles left at the memorial ceremony, which had been attended by about 200 people. When police arrived, some of the neo-Nazis shouted "Sieg Heil". One eyewitness was quoted in a media report as saying he saw three of the neo-Nazis urinating on the memorial stone. "I'm horrified," said Matthias Platzeck, premier of Brandenburg, the state where the incident took place. "It is a provocation beyond all bearing. Anyone who attacks flowers and candles for the millions of Holocaust victims hasn't learned a thing about the greatest disaster in German history." The state prosecutor's office said arrest warrants will be issued against nine suspects, eight of whom face breach of public peace and desecration of the dead charges. One suspect will face charges of inciting racial hatred. About 150 people followed an appeal by Frankfurt Mayor Martin Patzelt and gathered at the memorial on Friday morning, some placing new floral wreaths and candles. On Germany's eastern border, Frankfurt on Oder is about 560 km (348 miles) from the financial capital Frankfurt on Main in the far west. About 200 Jews live in the city of 63,000. There were about 800 in 1933 when Adolf Hitler's Nazis took power. ANTI-SEMITISM Earlier on Thursday, President Horst Koehler, in a speech broadcast on national television at the consecration of a new synagogue in Munich, warned anti-Semitism was still present. During the Kristallnacht pogrom on the night of Nov. 9-10, Nazi mobs destroyed hundreds of synagogues across Germany and Austria, ransacked Jewish homes and stores and attacked Jews, in some cases beating them to death. Germany's eastern states, plagued by high unemployment, have been a hotbed of Germany's far-right movement. Extremists there have defied police efforts to thwart the violence. Brandenburg is one of three ex-communist regions where far-right parties hold state parliament seats. The federal government has called a rise in anti-Semitic violence worrying. Police said last month attacks by far-right groups rose 20 percent in the first eight months of 2006. In July, extremists in the neighbouring state of Saxony-Anhalt burned the diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank. In another incident, teens in the same state last month forced a 16-year-old classmate to parade round school wearing a sign with an anti-Semitic Nazi-era slogan.
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