In Saarland, 33 antisemitic incidents were documented last year by the Research and Information Center for Antisemitism Saarland (RIAS).
As the RIAS reported, most of the cases involved post-Shoah antisemitism. This means the defense against guilt and responsibility for the crimes of German National Socialism, more concretely: Holocaust denial or relativization.
In 13 cases there was damage to property, six of them to Jewish property and to memorials for Jewish victims of Nazi crimes. In Saarbrücken, the memorial on Rabbiner-Rülf-Platz and the information board on the recently opened memorial for the Saarland victims of the Shoah (“Band of Remembrance”) directly in front of the synagogue in Saarbrücken were damaged several times.
According to RIAS, the memorial plaque for Holocaust survivor Alex Deutsch in Wiebelskirchen was damaged twice, including by scratched swastikas.
Incidents in which Jews in Saarland are directly intimidated and attacked are particularly alarming. In the RIAS Saarland, three such cases have been documented in the past two years. Minors who were attacked by their classmates were affected.
“It is an intolerable social reality that children and young people experience antisemitism in school,” says Petra Melchert, an employee of RIAS Saarland . “This also shows that anti-Semitism must become an integral part of educational work” – and not only in the ninth grade in the context of the Nazi era.
“Anti-Semitism is an everyday problem in Saarland,” states Melchert. “This is also indicated in the cases we have documented, although these certainly only cover a fraction of the actual events.” That is why it is important that antisemitic incidents are always reported – this can be done online, for example, via the website www.report-antisemitism. en .
