A couple driving along Mount Cook in Queensland, Australia, discovered a fence with a swastika and Nazi SS bolts featured on it.
The couple, both of whom are children of Holocaust survivors, took a photo of the fence, which had white pipes formed in the shape of the Nazi symbols taped to the fence. The gate had two pillars on each side of it with a red swastika ornament on top of each pillar.
A 71-year-old woman, who did not give her name, told BBC Breaking News that both of her parents and her stepmother lost their parents, siblings as well as other family members and large swaths of their communities to the Holocaust.
“This sight turned my stomach and made me furious that in this day and age, we still have people advocating for genocide,” the woman said. “I love Australia, but I feel robbed because so many people must have seen this outrage and no one voiced their objections. I believe that those who displayed this disgusting signage should be charged with incitement to murder.”
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich told BBC Breaking News, “‘For a Holocaust survivor, this hellish sight is their worst fears realized and would be as scary as being threatened with a gun. Anyone who believes in our nation’s shared values will be outraged by these signs that are dripping with venomous hate and are a call for murder.”
He added that the incident is further evidence of the need for Australia to ban the public display of any Nazi symbols.
“We should remember that the stone-cold murderer who massacred 51 worshippers in the mosques in Christchurch and other white-supremacist killers were inspired by the very ideology represented by the swastikas exhibited on that gate,” Abramovich said. “Now is the time to act and to send the unmistakable message that Nazism has no place in Australia.”
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “A swastika and SS Bolts were found adorning a fence in Queensland, Australia. Seeing these hateful symbols of the Holocaust flown so freely out in the open is truly a stomach-churning sight and a dishonor to the survivors of the Shoah and their families.”
A swastika and SS Bolts were found adorning a fence in Queensland, Australia. Seeing these hateful symbols of the Holocaust flown so freely out in the open is truly a stomach-churning sight and a dishonor to the survivors of the Shoah and their families.https://t.co/ybnfUoHmJa
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) August 6, 2020
A report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in November found that serious anti-Semitic incidents in Australia increased 30% from 2018 to 2019.
