Comments (2)Holocaust Ad Illegal, German Court Rules
April 1, 2009Berlin
JTA Wire Service
An ad campaign that compared animal slaughterhouses with Nazi extermination camps is illegal, Germany’s high court found.
Germany’s main Jewish group welcomed the March 26 German Supreme Court decision against the 2003 “Holocaust on your Plate” ad campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The suit against PETA was filed in 2004 by Paul Spiegel, late president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
“It is a milestone ruling, stating very clearly that no use of the ‘Holocaust’ and its victims to raise attention for other present political issues, dilemmas or just political demands is acceptable and legal,” Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council, told JTA in an e-mail.
The campaign included eight large panels showing black-and-white images of emaciated concentration camp inmates next to full color photos of chickens, turkeys and other animals fattened for the slaughter. One poster bore the slogan “Final Humiliation,” and another read “For animals, all people are Nazis.”
A photo of children in a concentration camp stood next to one of piglets in a stall. Under them was the caption “Child Butcher.”
The court said that the comparison—like outright Holocaust denial, which is illegal here—could prove extremely hurtful to Jewish people in Germany.
“Horror makes headlines,” noted Kramer, and “this is unacceptable” even if the cause is just. He noted that anti-abortion activists in Germany recently used the term “babycaust,” which he found similarly inappropriate.
“I hope that the ruling of the Supreme Court will set some new standards and re-establish old ones, so that such comparisons are out of the question,” Kramer said.
Spiegel had called the PETA campaign “the most disgusting abuse of the memory of the Holocaust in recent years.” The project also was condemned in the United States by the Anti-Defamation League and other groups.
Sale of Jewish Property in Lithuania Thwarted
Prague
A Lithuanian plan to sell a building that once housed the Vilna Ghetto Jewish library was halted by the U.S. Embassy, JTA has learned.
The library building, which the World Jewish Restitution Organization and Lithuanian Jewish community identify as Jewish community property, housed 450,000 books of Jewish literature in Vilnius under the Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1943.
Herbert Block, an executive vice president with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and a top official with the restitution group, said the embassy in the Lithuanian capital had informed him by e-mail that the Foreign Ministry had acceded to the embassy’s request to cancel the sale, which was to have taken place April 8.
Lithuania is among the few countries in Europe that has yet to come up with a restitution or compensation plan for Jewish communal property.
‘‘For eight years the Lithuanian government has been promising to come up with a plan, but so far nothing has come of it,’’ Block told JTA Monday.
The library is on a list of 438 buildings claimed as Jewish property that were taken over by the Communist government of Lithuania after World War II. The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius argued that the Lithuanian government should not be selling disputed properties.
In fact, the sale was not announced to any Jewish authorities but was uncovered by a local non-Jewish American activist in Vilnius, Wyan Brent, who alerted Jewish groups in the United States.
The restitution organization and the Lithuanian Jewish community recently rejected a $41 million compensation package for property, saying the sum, and how it was to be paid out over 10 years only if it was feasible for the government, was insufficient.
With numerous delays by previous governments and now the current government, the restitution process remains stalled, said Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee.
Baker also was informed by the embassy of the library sale cancellation.
‘‘It seems it was only blocked by a last-minute intercession,’’ he said.
Australian Judge Upholds Alleged Nazi’s Extradition
Sydney, Australia
An Australian judge has paved the way for an alleged Nazi war criminal to be extradited to Hungary.
Justice John Gilmour dismissed an appeal brought by Charles (Karoly) Zentai in Federal Court on Tuesday, ruling that the 87-year-old Perth resident is now eligible for extradition to Hungary, where he will face a charge of murdering a Jew in 1944.
Lawyers for Zentai had claimed that the crime of which he is accused was not an offense according to Hungarian law at the time it was allegedly committed. But Gilmour upheld last year’s decision by an Australian magistrate.
He gave the defense team one week to lodge an appeal to the full bench of the Federal Court and to prove why Zentai, who says he has a heart disease, should not be held in custody until the federal government makes the final decision on his extradition.
Zentai is alleged to have been part of a gang of three soldiers who killed 18-year-old Peter Balazs in Budapest in November 1944 and threw his body in the Danube River. Zentai strenuously denies the claim, saying he was not even in the Hungarian capital at the time.
Zentai, who is named on a list of the top 10 most wanted Nazi war criminals produced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has been fighting the case since he was first arrested by Australian Federal Police in 2005.
Australia has never extradited an alleged Nazi war criminal.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.