Germany 1999

[Johannes Schneider]

Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> Johannes Schneider <Johannes.Schneider at gmx.net> said:
>
> > TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- German Jewish leader Ignatz Bubis was buried
> > Sunday not in his hometown of Frankfurt, but in Tel Aviv, where he
> > hoped to escape desecration of his grave by neo-Nazis.
>
> Bubis did have some grounds for this fear, since his predecessor, Heinz
> Galinski, had his grave desecrated.
>
> But in the event, Bubis's grave was desecrated in Israel almost
> immediately after the service by an Israeli artist (Meir Mendlesohn) who
> accused him of collaborating with the Nazis.
I was expecting this to come up. First there is a difference between
destroying a grave with a bomb explossion and pouring out some colour, that
was almost not noted.
But thats not the decisive point here. Much more revealing is the reaction
of the German public on the incident: If you go to:
http://www.yahoo.de/schlagzeilen/politik/bubis.html
you will notice the first mentioning of the desecreation game at 8.44 pm in
an AP report, it was just mentioned as a minor incident at the end of the
funeral service. Only the next morning at 10.31 dpa is reporting: 'Israeli
desecrates Bubis grave'. Now all the other agencies (Reuters) are carrying
the story. AP is making a story out of it as well. All the major TV networks
report now something as a big event, that was not even worth mentioning the
evening before. Some even had it as the lead story.
What is beeing made out of it is obvious: All the warnings of Bubis about
the increasing threat of anti-semitism and Neo-Nazism in Germany were
unneccessary. Even worse, its the Jews who invented it and faked it.
Today the story is going on. Two anti-semitic stereotypes are presented
again: First the 'Rich Jew' (Bubis), who got his money through some dubious
financial transactions (thats what Mendelsohn is saying), but he cannot be
attacked because Jews are sacrosanct in Germany. Secondly the 'Filthy,
Criminal  Jew' (Mendelsohn himself). The leading tabloid BILD is carrying a
background story on Meir Mendelsohn, linking him with prostitution and
fraud.
One cannot eat as much, as one would like to vomit.
Johannes