DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
APRIL GLOVER
A playground in a popular Jewish area has been vandalised with spray-painted swastika symbols on children’s play equipment.
The swastikas were discovered in green spray paint at McKinnon Reserve in Glen Eira, Victoria – a community that is more than 50 per cent Jewish.
The anti-Semitic graffiti was quickly spotted by the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) in Caulfield and removed from the area.
Dr Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the ADC told Daily Mail Australia the graffiti makes part of a wider neo-Nazi campaign that is ‘seeping poison’ into Victoria.
He said: ‘There is something very troubling and unsettling happening in our country with a dramatic surge of white-Supremacist graffiti and activities as right-wing extremists are spreading their cancer of hate.
Imagine how distressed and traumatized a Holocaust survivor, taking their grandchild to this playground would be, when confronted with this potent symbol of genocide and xenophobia.’
Dr Abramovich added: ‘It is incumbent on the entire community to speak up against the scourge of anti-Semitism, and we call on all leaders, especially mayors, to say in a strong and loud voice not in our city!’
There has been a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in Victoria that has shocked Jewish communities across the state.
A neo-Nazi group in the Melbourne suburb of Balaclava where anti-Semitic flyers with swastikas emblazoned on the front were handed out in public.
The flyers were stuck on lampposts by a group which calls itself ‘Antipodean Resistance’ which stated on its website that it distributed ‘about a hundred or so’ posters on the ‘extremely Jewish Balaclava Road’.
Another incident in the Victorian town of Daylesford saw a man wearing Neo-Nazi clothing with the words ‘Sieg Heil’, ‘F****ts’ and the Nazi swastika.
Of this incident, Dr Abramovich said: ‘We find it absolutely outrageous and shocking that these two white-Supremacists, with hate in their hearts, were openly and brazenly displaying these virulently racist insignia, intimidating and victimising the LGBTI community and residents in the area.’
Wearing these shirts is an insult to the millions of innocent victims, including gays and lesbians, who were murdered by the Nazis, and an affront to those diggers who fought bravely to defeat Hitler’s regime.’
He added: ‘Clearly, white supremacists are becoming more visible and active in promoting their bigoted ideology, and this alarming escalation will leave many fearful for their safety.’
Dr Abramovich told Daily Mail Australia the ADC was ‘disgusted’ to also find that Facebook had images of Hitler in its GIF section.
Among the GIFs are moving pictures of Hitler with headphones listening to music, SS officers break-dancing, Hitler with a Santa Clause hat dancing, a smiling Hitler with a young girl sitting on his knees, a flaming swastika and footage of Hitler giving the Heil Hitler.
The ADC has called on Facebook to remove the offending animations but Dr Abramovich said they are ‘very difficult’ to get in touch with.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4311170/Swastikas-playground-Victorian-Jewish-suburb.html#ixzz4bLQb4ALi