Five teen-agers, ages 16 to 18, were arrested Monday by police authorities in Eisenstadt, following the desecration of 80 Jewish graves last week.
One 17-year-old boy confessed to the smearing of a swastika at a bus station but denied spraying anti-Semitic slogans at the Jewish cemetery. He is being kept in custody.
The Austrian interior minister has set up a special task force to investigate this desecration. Their findings seem to prove that this action was organized and executed with help from abroad. The letter found on location and claiming responsibility for the smearing shows similar semantics and misspellings to pamphlets found in German Ku Klux Klan groups.
Inhabitants of Eisentadt, who were upset about the desecration, are said to have given clues to the police about where to look for the culprits.
“Although we found an extreme right-wing scene and searched many houses, we are convinced that these guys got active support from the German scene,” a police spokesman said.
The Jewish cemetery of Eisenstadt is to get an automatic surveillance system. “As if this could help solve the problem,” remarked Paul Grosz, president of the Austrian Jewish community.
A protest against the desecration, led by Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky and many leading personalities of the arts and the church, was organized at the cemetery.
Filmmaker Axel Corti said, “We are here because we will not tolerate that Jewish Austrians should not be able to rest in peace. Together we want to express our shame and ask for forgiveness.”
Vranitzky recalled that hundreds of Jews had gathered in this very cemetery 54 years ago to escape the pogroms of Kristallnacht.
“One who desecrates a cemetery desecrates the dead and the living alike,” he said. “We want to demonstrate here clearly that Austria is the home for all the people who were born here and who had come here over the years.
“Even if some people try to disturb the peace in this home of ours, they will never succeed in destroying it,” said the Austrian chancellor.
All day Sunday, a vigil was held at the cemetery, organized by the women of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. Cardinal Franz Konig and two bishops joined the demonstration of solidarity.
About 500 people gathered Monday in Vienna to commemorate the 54th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
The rally was organized mainly by non-Jewish organizations concerned about a possible referendum on laws placing restrictions on foreigners that was initiated by Jorg Haider, head of the rightist populist Freedom Party.
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