Police here found what appeared to be the grisly remains of a sacrifice outside the Jewish cemetery in Rome, but it was unclear whether it was an anti-Semitic provocation or remnants of a sacrifice outside the Jewish cemetery in Rome, but it was unclear whether it was an anti-Semitic provocation or remnants of a satanic Black Mass ritual.
Shortly before midnight Tuesday, a security guard noticed a box outside the cemetery gates and, fearing it might be a bomb, called the police emergency squad.
There has been a spate of terrorist bombings in Italy over the past several months. The bomb squad, however, found not an explosive device inside the box but rather a small, partially burned wooden table covered in black cloth, to which a heart had been impaled with four nails, a police spokesman said. “It was the heart of an animal, not human,” he said.
The spokesman added that there was nothing specifically anti-Semitic inherent in the grisly discovery, no anti-Semitic slogans or swastikas.
“To me, it seems more like the remains of a Black Mass or something other than an anti-Semitic act,” he said.
But investigators were looking into the possibility that, given the location, it was a provocation by neo-Nazi skinheads.
There have been several recently publicized cases of Black Masses and satanic ceremonies in Italy, including one this past week at a Christian cemetery in Milan.
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.
