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.
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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.
