Vandals desecrate Jewish cemetery
 
by Associated Press

Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20040810.w2ceme0810/BNStory/International/
August 10, 2004 

Lyon, France - The French government vowed Tuesday to catch and 
prosecute vandals who splashed anti-Semitic graffiti across 
about 60 Jewish tombstones in a cemetery in Lyon overnight, 
the third such attack here since May.

The incident came on a day when a Jewish cemetery was found 
desecrated in the Czech Republic, and when members of Parliament 
in New Zealand condemned vandals who wrecked Jewish gravestones 
in two cemeteries and torched a Jewish prayer house in recent 
weeks - a sign that governments are struggling to contain 
anti-Jewish acts.

Haim Musicant, director general of the Representative Council of 
French Jewish Institutions, said he saw no indication that the 
incidents were related.

“There is no international conspiracy, it's just a sign of the 
times,” Mr. Musicant said.

Swastikas and references to Adolf Hitler were painted in black 
on headstones in La Mouche cemetery in Lyon, France's 
second-largest city. The same burial site that was desecrated 
by skinheads in 1992. Graffiti also covered a monument at the 
entrance to the cemetery to Jewish soldiers who fought in the 
Second World War.

There was no indication that skinheads were involved this time, 
authorities said, though a gathering of neo-Nazi skinhead 
sympathizers took place in France less than two weeks ago.

They also said there was no evidence to implicate young French 
Muslims, who have been blamed for some of the anti-Jewish 
attacks in recent years in France. Anti-Semitic attacks have 
increased in this country as tensions have risen between Israel 
and the Palestinians.

Authorities questioned two youths seen in the Lyon cemetery 
overnight, prosecutor Xavier Richaud said, but they were not 
under arrest.

Mr. Musicant said perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence in 
France are often young people with no memory or knowledge of 
the Holocaust, the systematic murder of six million Jews during 
the war.

“The majority of those caught are young people, sometimes even 
children. The Holocaust is far for them. They have no idea what 
a catastrophe it was for the Jewish people and for the whole 
world.”

The crime drew swift condemnation from French President Jacques 
Chirac, and Justice Minister Dominique Perben visited the site 
to demonstrate how seriously the French government takes the 
case.

“The perpetrators of this outrage are being actively pursued,” 
Mr. Chirac said in a letter to Marcel Dreyfus, a Jewish leader 
in Lyon. “They will be punished to the maximum extent of the law.”

In the Czech Republic, about 80 tombstones were found toppled 
at a Jewish cemetery in Hranice, a town about 300 kilometres 
east of Prague, police said Tuesday. Sigmund Freud's brother, 
Julius, was buried there in 1858.

In Eastern Europe, dozens of Jewish cemeteries have been 
vandalized over the past year, although it is unclear whether 
the acts are driven by the traditionally strong anti-Semitic 
feeling in the region, a surge of anti-Israeli sentiment or both. 
Just last month, vandals overturned and destroyed gravestones 
at two Hungarian Jewish cemeteries.

Anti-Jewish attacks have not been limited to Europe and the 
Middle East. In the past several weeks, New Zealand has experienced 
the worst anti-Semitic attacks in its history: Vandals wrecked 
Jewish gravestones in two cemeteries and torched a Jewish prayer 
house.