Jewish centre desecrated

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 1

Jewish centre desecrated

PA . Wellington Vandals have desecrated Wellington's Webb Street Synagogue and Jewish Community Centre with Nazi signs and slogans, references to the gassing of Jews, German phrases, and English obscenities. The centre’s office was ransacked at the week-end, files and papers being spread over the floor. The vandals also attacked two full-size billiard tables, cutting the cloth with glass and adding a few daubs of the blue paint used on the walls in the courtyard.

Shocked Jewish community members were yesterday unable to clean the walls before Sunday School began. Teachers had to explain the meaning to the children. A spokesman for the New Zealand Jewish Council said

he thought it ironic that the children were seeing this sort of thing for the first time in their lives. He did not want to be named in case of reprisals. A Sunday School teacher, said he had tried to explain to the children “that there are people in New Zealand, just as in other parts of the world, who have strange notions about the Jews — I tried 'to make them aware of what it was about.

“It brings home to these children that, as Jews, they are susceptible to this sort of thing, even in New Zealand.” The council spokesman said he did not know whether the desecration had been encouraged by Fascist-based parties or by recent, television programmes. The painted slogans and signs were, in correct form,

such as the S.S. signs and the swastikas, with the name of a wanted war criminal, Dr Mengele, and a German phrase, Tod dem Juden (death to the Jews) correctly spelled and in the right tense. There were also references to the Ku Klux Klan, one with four Ks instead of three.

The council spokesman said there had been a programme about the Ku Klux Klan on television last week and a film starring Vanessa Redgrave, “Playing for Time,” had.been shown on October 31.

“Playing for Time” concerns a singer named Fania Fenelon who survived Auschwitz as a member of the camp’s bizarre orchestra.

Dr. Mengele was a doctor at Auschwitz.

Another painted sign on the walls of the centre and synagogue courtyard was “Belson (sic) was a gas.” Belsen was another of the Nazi concentration camps. The council spokesman said that everybody was upset about the vandalism.

• “Our parents and grandparents came out here to get away from it, and now they are being reminded of it in New Zealand of all places. We are shocked and concerned, particularly for our parents and grand-parents. “We are living in this society, and dammit, we should not have to wire this

up for security and have guards and things, we do not want to bring our children to an area so secure that it is hard to move about in.” The Wellington C. 1.8. is investigating the incident which occurred some time on Saturday night. The week-end’s anti-Semi-tic attack is not the first in recent years in Wellington. The synagogue has been a target before, as have private homes and Jewish graves at the Karori cemetery.