Neo-Nazis Hijack Gala And Burn Copies Of Anne Frank's Diary
Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer Pretzien, Germany (AHN) - After hijacking a traditional gala, nearly 100 German neo-Nazis cheered and shouted Sieg Heil as they tore up and burned a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank, burned a U.S. flag, and sang banned Nazi songs. The incident, which comes as the country rides a new wave of peaceful patriotism as it hosts the World Cup, has horrified Germany. Uwe Hornburg, a prosecutor investigating the incident, says, "I am appalled. In 20 years as a prosecutor I have never had a case quite so disturbing." The book-burning, which has chilling parallels to the 1930s when Nazi supporters made bonfires of books written by Jews, follows a string of high-profile attacks by racist gangs on blacks. According to the Daily Mail report, the gang of neo-Nazis descended on a field in the village of Pretzien, Saxony, where citizens were re-enacting a pagan rite celebrating midsummer. When asked about the disturbing incident, Saxon interior minister Holger Hoevelmann says, "This is an attack on civilized culture, on humanity and on decency." Pretzien is in the impoverished former communist east of Germany, some 100 miles from Berlin. Its mayor Friedrich Harwig, who saw the book-burning, says, "This happened because our defenses against it are not strong enough. I have struggled for years against neo-Nazis and they keep on growing." According to the report, many areas of the |
