Anti-Semitic cemetery vandals struck again Saturday night in France and West Germany, defacing scores of tombstones with swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans.
But the target in France was, inexplicably, the small Catholic cemetery of La Salvetat-Saint Gilles, a town near the city of Toulouse, where Jean-Marie Le Pen’s right-wing, racist National Front polled nearly 20 percent of the vote in the last elections.
Police said the vandals apparently got “mixed up” and spray-painted inscriptions such as “Jews back to the gas chambers” and “Nazis will live again” on non-Jewish graves.
The desecration was discovered at noon Sunday, when local families arrived to visit the graves.
In Stuttgart, West Germany, meanwhile, more than 60 headstones at a Jewish cemetery were defaced with Nazi symbols and threats. The damage has been estimated at $125,000.
The slogans read “Jews out” and “The gas chambers never existed.”
Police believe right-wing extremists were responsible, but admit they have no clues.
Similar damage was done two weeks ago at a grave site for Nazi victims near Tubingen, 30 miles south of Stuttgart. No arrests were made.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
