While revellers were ushering in the new year in Rome on Monday night, anti-Semitic vandals broke into and partially destroyed the summer home of a Jewish businessman in the suburb of Velletri.
It was one of the most savage assaults on record, according to accounts by local witnesses published in II Messaggero.
The house, which was empty at the time, was invaded at about midnight. The intruders scrawled slogans such as “Jews your place is in the lager” (concentration camp), “Go away forever” and “You die as always by gas.”
They turned on gas jets in the kitchen and left a lighted fuse. The explosion, which wrecked most of the interior of the house owned by Cesare Spagnoletto, alerted neighbors, who called the police and the owner.
The vandals also smashed furniture and tore out bathroom fixtures.
According to II Messaggero, it was the second anti-Semitic attack in Velletri in recent months.
The newspaper said that six months ago, anti-Semitic slogans were scrawled on the shutters of a Jewish-owned shop. The town council at the time passed a special resolution condemning the act.
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.
