Since the arrest last June of Franz Gustav Wagner, who has been called the “human beast” by survivors of the Treblinka and Sobitor Nazi death camps, pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish demonstrations have been held in six cities of Brazil’s southern province, Rio Grande do Sol, including its capital, Porto Alegro, Jewish community leaders reported. Wagner has been accused of supervising the murder of more than a million inmates of the two death camps.
Poland, Austria and West Germany have made formal requests to the Brazil government for Wagner’s extradition. Israel’s extradition request still lacks some documents required by Brazilian officials for such action.
Swastikas and slogans, including “Deutschland Uber Alles” and “Death to the Jews” were found smeared on the walls of municipal buildings, a monastery and Jewish institutions. In Porto Alegro, the windows of the new Jewish school building and of the Jewish community center were smashed with stones wrapped in papers bearing pro-Nazi slogans.
THOROUGH INVESTIGATION ORDERED
Initially, police disregarded the Nazi activities, suggesting they were the work of irresponsible street gangs. But after the intervention of a delegation of Jewish community leaders, led by Samuel Burd, president of the Porto Alegro Jewish Federation, Dr. Sinval Guazelli, the governor of Rio Grande do Sol, ordered a thorough investigation.
At the same time, Justice Minister Armando Palcao, accused by the Porto Alegro Jewish Federation of negligence, ordered the federal police to investigate, giving assurances that the required effort would be made to determine the identities of the demonstrators and to stop the Nazi activities.
Jewish officials said some German youth, known for pro-Nazi sympathies, had been questioned, as was the owner of a jewelry store, whose name was given as Deckmann. He is being investigated for selling silver and gold-plated swastikas. Prof. Chilhermino Cesar, said the main Nazi activities in Brazil before World War II took place in most of the same cities hit by the current outbreaks including Santa Rosa, Santa Angelo, Caxias do Sol and Ijui, where Germans made up around 70 percent of the population.
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