MOORABBIN GLEN EIRA LEADER
A BENTLEIGH church with German heritage was vandalised by racists who sprayed a swastika on the church noticeboard.
The Temple Society on Tucker Rd was targeted just over a week ago and Mark Hermann, regional head of Temple Society Australia, said he was saddened by the incident.
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“Coming from a Christian community with a German heritage and culture, this filled me not with anger, but with great sadness and disappointment — reminding me and any passers-by of the horrors of the Third Reich,” Mr Hermann said.
He said the spray painted image echoed the “genocide that damaged the world irrevocably”.
“We must all learn from the atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany and forbid, at all costs, a repeat of such actions.”
Mr Hermann said Templars had a German heritage and “we cannot change that”.
He said a real estate agent’s building nearby was vandalised with the same green paint.
“That was random scrawls which would lead us to believe the swastika was targeted at us because of the mention of German classes on out noticeboard,” Mr Hermann said.
Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of The Anti-Defamation Commission, strongly denounced “this repugnant display of intolerance and vandalism”.
“This distressing act of bigotry is an attack on the decency of all Australians, and is a sad reminder us that the virus of racism and White-supremacy still remains a serious problem in our community,” Mr Abramovich said.
In March last year a Jewish family from East Bentleigh was the victim of a targeted attack after a swastika was painted onto a car parked outside their home.
And in March this year swastikas were spray painted at a playground in McKinnon.
One of the swastikas was painted on children’s play equipment in McKinnon Reserve. That incident followed similar anti-Semitic attacks in St Kilda and Balaclava in February where 100 swastikas flyers were posted at a primary school and on poles in the area.