Swiss City Hit by Campaign of Virulent Anti-semitism

Swiss police are investigating the recent emergence of what appears to be a well organized campaign of virulent anti-Semitism in the city of Basel near the German border. Its targets are not only Jews but non-Jewish families who have Jewish friends. The campaign is aimed particularly against faculty and students of the medical school in Basel, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Vicious anti-Semitic slogans have been daubed on the walls of the local synagogue, the Jewish cemetery, public telephone booths and on the walls of underpasses near the university. Several prominent members of the Jewish community and their non-Jewish friends have received anonymous letters or telephoned death threats or anonymous calls telling them that their sons or daughters were dead.

Some of the slogans read, “Jews Out”; “Jews are Swine “; “Auschwitz was invented by the Jews. ” On the bulletin board of the medical school faculty, someone wrote: “Jews, sons of prostitutes, out of here.”

CAMPAIGN TERMED UNPRECEDENTED

The campaign has been described as without precedent in Switzerland and the Jewish community is deeply concerned. There was a bomb scare at the medical school. Jewish students have been advised not to attend a faculty party next week because their lives may be in danger.

Simon Dreifus, president of the Jewish community in Basel, said there have been a few anti-Semitic incidents in the city since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon last summer, but they were primitive. This time, the campaign is well organized and unrestrained in its viciousness. He suggested that there might be a connection between this outburst and the 50th anniversary of the Nazis’ ascension to power in Germany. Police conducting the investigation have released no information so far.