1. Confront extremism and anti-Semitism in Europe today
2. Distribute this new report to activists, government leaders and members of the media
In Europe, hate is on the march. In the UK, France, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Spain, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and beyond, the resurgence of extremist movements is a common theme with variations throughout Europe.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s newest report, European Extremist Movements: Who’s Who And What’s What, written by SWC historical consultant Dr. Harold Brackman, takes anin depth look at what is happening, country by country, in Europe today.
• In Greece, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn movement, whose leaders proudly unleash the Nazi salute and whose charter limitsmembership to “only Aryans in blood and
Greeks in descent”
won enough votes to enter Parliament
•
In France, where the Jewish community is still reeling from the
brutal murders in Toulouse, unidentified assailants
seriously injured three Jews in Villeurbaine near Lyon
•
In Norway, a 16 year-old
teenager, stigmatized because his father is Israeli, was “fire branded” when a red-hot coin wasplaced on his neck by a fellow student
•
In Germany, iconic German author
Günter Grass, scapegoats Israel for all the world’s ills, and the
Berlin BiennaleArt Show featured a short film showing a group of smiling,
naked people playing a game of tag in a Nazi gas chamber
While the European right’s ongoing anti-Semitism comes as no surprise, the descent into Jew-baiting, as well as Israel-baiting, by many on the European left hasbeen particularly shocking.
