The Jewish community here has taken special security measures to protect itself after the Jewish owners of a clothing shop found stickers with anti-Semitic slogans on the store’s windows.
The stickers bore Nazi swastikas and slogans such as “We are black” and “Don’t buy from Jews.”
The stickers were apparently the work of “NDSAP-AO,” an international neo-Nazi organization headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. The organization was established in 1973 by an American neo-Nazi, Garry Lauck. In Belgium and Holland, the neo-Nazi group is known as the Action Group-National Socialist.
The 20,000-member community reacted with outrage to the incident, and attributed the incident to the recent political success of the right-wing Flemish Bloc, which scored important gains last month in Antwerp’s municipal elections. One out of three people voted for the party.
“The extreme right feels stronger after the recent municipal elections. It appears to have decided to act,” said Sydney Berneman, spokesman for Antwerp’s Forum of Jewish Organizations.
A special unit of the city’s police force has been ordered to investigate extremist activities.
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