German neo-Nazi gang 'developed Monopoly-style game with death camps'

A neo-Nazi gang suspected of murdering 10 people developed their own version of the board game Monopoly featuring death camps and gas works.

Called "Pogromly" and intended for other far-right extremists the game has the names of four Nazi concentration camps instead of the railway stations found on the traditional Monopoly board. Players have the chance to buy Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck, with each camp costing 4,000 reichsmarks, the currency used in Hitler's Germany.

A number of sets of the game were discovered in a garage used by the gang the self-styled National Socialist Underground amongst bomb-making equipment and unused nail bombs last month.

Players start on a square emblazoned with a swastika and also have the chance of landing on a numbers of squares marked with the SS emblem. The board also comes with pictures of Hitler and sinister looking Jews. It is thought the game is based loosely on events surrounding Kristallnacht. On the night of November 8, 1938, the Nazi's unleashed a violent pogrom against German Jews, destroying hundreds of synagogues and Jewish-owned business, and arresting 30,000 people, many of whom were sent to concentration camps.

The gang, apparently, produced dozens of Pogromly sets, which retailed on the underground far-right scene for about £42, as a way of supplementing their finances from 2000 to 2011. The games were sold by an associate of the gang Andre K., who has since been arrested, although, apparently, they suspected he was pocketing too much of the proceeds.

A report by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine said that gang members called other extremists to complain about the lack of money they were receiving from their colleague.

Pogromly comes as the latest lurid twist in the scandal surrounding the operations of the National Socialist Underground. Despite murdering nine men of immigrant background and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007, and conducting 14 bank robberies, police remained oblivious to the gang's existence.

It was not exposed until a botched bank raid last month led to two members committing suicide and the survivor handing herself into the police.

Daily Telegraph

Nazi vandal shock in park

Click on image for full-size

Mindless vandals have daubed a park with Nazi slogans and signs in the week the country stops to remember its war dead.

A shelter in Anchorsholme Park has been painted with swastikas – the terrifying symbol of the German Nazi Party who were responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War – and the Nazi salute of sieg heil, meaning hail victory. The party, led by Adolf Hitler, was the main fighting force against British troops during the war, and with Remembrance Day on Friday, the graffiti has left one resident disgusted with the vandals.

Jamie Young, from Anchorsholme, said: “I think it’s very offensive being less than a week until Remembrance Day. We have had so many problems in this part of town next to the Norbreck Castle Hotel and it has been a problem for a number of years. It almost seems the police and the council are powerless to deal with the issue and it’s most times of the day.”

Mr Young claims the area has issues with school children coming to the area at their lunch and causing trouble. He added: “It was only ten days ago a group of kids had a fight in the park. It’s a nightmare. It used to be really nice round here but it has gone downhill.”

Ian Coleman, president of Blackpool’s Royal British Legion branch, delivered a petition to Downing Street last week to lobby the Government to hand out stronger punishments to those defacing war memorials. He told The Gazette: “They can have no idea about what harm they’re doing if they lived through the war. Millions and millions of people lost their lives under that swastika sign and it should never rear its head again, especially in this country. Now I find out our locals are doing this and I find it abhorrent.”

Mr Coleman is now calling on schools to do more to educate people about the evils of the Nazis. He added: “This isn’t just graffiti, it’s a slight on anyone who died from this country and it’s a slap in the face for anyone who stands up for democracy. It’s a lack of understanding and education, possibly through schools and their own families not passing down what has happened.

“Education is a must because millions of people were killed under that swastika and so many more suffered soul-destroying injuries.”

Blackpool Gazette

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Man Has Race Hate Tattoos Burned Off His Face

A former white supremacist gang leader has undergone months of painful laser treatment to erase hate-filled tattoos from his face.

Bryon Widner, for years an "enforcer" for some of America's most notorious racist groups, shunned his beliefs after marrying but struggled to get a job due to his appearance. He was so desperate to hide his tattoos he even contemplated using acid to disfigure himself but eventually found a sponsor for expensive laser treatment.

The process, which cost \$32,400 (£20,233), was so painful that he had to be put under general anaesthetic each time and it took 25 operations over 16 months before it was complete. Now his face is completely clear and scar-free and his hair has grown back. His arms and torso are still extensively tattooed but he is inking over the "political" designs such as Nazi lightning bolts.

The former racist, a founder of the Vinlanders gang of skinheads in Ohio, used to have swastikas branded on his scalp as well as HATE stamped across his knuckles, "Blood & Honour" on his neck and "Thug Reich" on his stomach. A black arrow, pointing upwards, was also etched onto his forehead as a symbol of his willingness to die to for his race.

He and his wife Julie, a former member of the National Alliance, started to question their beliefs after they married in 2006 and were raising Mrs Widner's three children and a baby of their own. Mr Widner sent his "patch" back to his skinhead group and threw all his other belongings denoting his former life onto a bonfire but the couple struggled to find a solution for his facial tattoos.

They scoured the internet but the surgery was so complicated and expensive that they started to investigate homemade possibilities. He said: "I was totally prepared to douse my face in acid."

Eventually, they were put in touch with the Southern Poverty Law Centre who became convinced the couple were genuine and found a sponsor to pay for the treatment. The donor said: "For him to have any chance in life and do good, I knew those tattoos had to come off."

Dr Bruce Shack, of the Department of Plastic Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, used a laser pen to trace the tattoos and burned them off Mr Widner's face. After a couple of sessions, he realised his patient was in too much pain and that he would have to be given a general anaesthetic each time.

Mr Widner now suffers frequent migraines and has to stay out the sun because of the treatment but he says: "It's a small price to pay for being human again."

You can watch the video at the link below.

Sky/Yahoo News

Swastikas daubed on homes of south Belfast migrants

Racist graffiti has been scrawled on the homes of migrant workers in south Belfast

Swastikas and racial slurs were painted on the properties in the Botanic area. South Belfast MLA Anna Lo said she condemned this “appalling” behaviour and urged people to be more tolerant.

“A lot of work has been done at community level to promote mutual understanding between local residents and new migrant workers,” she said. “Nobody wants to see this sort of graffiti. We are generally very welcoming to minorities and this sort of thing gives us a bad name.”

Anti-racism campaigner Paddy Meehan, who organised a community solidarity protest against attacks on Romanian families in the area in 2009, is calling for the community to unite together.

“If these racists are allowed to continue this unacceptable behaviour people will begin to fear for their safety,” he said.

Belfast Telegraph

Students shocked by campus attack

A police investigation is underway after a university was daubed with offensive slogans

Swastikas and offensive wording, including "no Pakis", were sprayed on a number of buildings at Staffordshire University's Leek Road and College Road campuses at roughly 2am yesterday. Once spotted, maintenance staff were dispatched to clean up the graffiti. However, the incident has left students upset, with many saying they wouldn't recommend Stoke-on-Trent as a suitable destination to come and study.

Charlotte McKenzie, aged 20, came to the university from Nottingham. The broadcast journalism student said: "The graffiti is disgusting. I came to Stoke-on-Trent already aware of the high number of BNP councillors, but gave it a chance. This sort of thing makes me not want to be here anymore, or recommend it to my friends. I have experienced racism during my time here, whether it is sly remarks or innuendos."

Rochelle Owusu, aged 18, is originally from North London. The law and journalism student said: "I cannot believe something like this has happened at the place I chose to come to study. I'm only in my first year and I didn't sign up to deal with this sort of thing. This is somewhere we should feel safe."

The incident has been linked by some to the imminent university elections where current students' union president Assed Baig is fighting to hold on to his position. The 28-year-old is facing the polls after a group of students moved for a vote of no confidence. Mr Baig has been heavily involved in protests against the BNP and in the recent English Defence League demonstration in Hanley. He also made headlines last year after posting an article on the union website, containing a link to a site identifying 30 BNP members living within two miles of the university's Stoke campus.

Mr Baig, who has Pakistani parents, believes the attack was a message to him.

"I have no idea who has done this, but when they write "no Pakis" outside the entrance to my work, I feel it is aimed at me, especially with the election approaching," he said. "I cannot understand why somebody would do this, it makes me sick to my stomach."

Gary McNally, aged 24, is chairman of the Students' Union Council. The modern and international history student, who moved to the Potteries from Newbury, said: "I think it's disgusting that people are trying to intimidate students. We need to bring the community together, from all religions, to fight this. This sort of thing really puts people off studying here."

A spokesman for the university said: "We wish to send a strong and clear message to say we do not tolerate racist behaviour in any form on our campuses. Our campuses are covered by CCTV and regular night patrols and we will be fully co-operating with police."

A police spokesman added: "We are working with the university and students' union. CCTV footage is being checked."

Witnesses are asked to call PC Keith Emery on 0300 123 4455.

The Sentinel

War heroes' fury over nazi insult

Furious veterans have accused a British Army surplus store of "insulting" the dead by stocking Nazi memorabilia – just yards from the Hull war memorial

Combat Clothing Company, in Paragon Street, city centre, is selling various items of replica memorabilia just 200 metres from the memorial, where hundreds turned out for the annual Remembrance Sunday parade. The memorabilia includes:

• Flags displaying the Swastika
• Swastika armbands, as worn by Waffen-SS soldiers
• Replica Iron Cross medals, complete with a Swastika in the centre

Second World War veteran Perris Coupland, chairman of both the Hull branch of the Royal British Legion and Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, said he is outraged.

The 84-year-old said: "This is an insult to the 700 Hull people who lost their lives in the 83 air raids. The Nazis machine-gunned the centre of this city centre. It is disgusting and insulting to exhibit these items almost within sight of the war memorial, which is dedicated to the memory of those who died fighting these people."

Bill Feller, president of the Hull branch of the Normandy Veterans' Association, said: "It is disgusting. "Stores should be banned from selling this stuff."

Mr Feller, who took part in last weekend's parade at the Paragon Square war memorial, doctored his birth certificate and joined the Army aged 16. He fought in Algiers aged 17.

The 84-year-old added: "The Nazis were known for their cruelty. We had nothing against the ordinary German soldier – they were just like us. But the Nazis were in another league altogether."

Several different designs of Nazi flags hang on a hook next to modern, desert-coloured British Army uniforms in the store. Lapel badges, also featuring the Swastika, are displayed in the same glass cabinet as replica wartime medals issued to British soldiers.

Pat Arksey, organiser of Hull's Poppy Appeal, said: "This store should have more sensitivity, especially at this time of the year when we are remembering those from Hull who died at the hands of the Nazis."

It comes just weeks after four former generals complained about "extremists" who hijack British Army symbols. The four put their names to a letter stating the forces' reputation is being tarnished by right-wing groups. The British National Party (BNP) has been using military symbols, including a picture of a Spitfire alongside the words 'Battle for Britain', in the party's recent European election campaign.

Mike May, owner of Combat Clothing Company, defended his decision to sell the items. He told the Mail: "We have always sold these items. No-one has ever complained. If they were illegal we would obviously not be selling them. It's part of history. Should be stop reenactments at Fort Paull? There are a lot of re-enactors who buy our flags. They can't afford genuine German flags, which cost hundreds of pounds each. Some people might object to us selling British Army camouflage gear, but we stock that."

However, Jeff Baker, manager of Military Wear House, in Hessle Road, west Hull, said: "We do not sell Nazi items. It would be disrespectful to those who lost their lives fighting for this country."

Criminal Robert Cockerline was criticised after appearing before Hull Crown Court last week wearing an enamel badge, which featured the words "Heil Hitler" around a Swastika. Cockerline, 42, who has a record for harassment and criminal damage, appeared for breaching court orders but was allowed to walk free. He is on probation as an alternative to prison.

This is Hull and East Riding

Holocaust memorial in France defaced with swastikas

Hunt for vandals who scrawled Nazi graffiti at Drancy, wartime camp from where 63,000 Jews went to their deaths

The government of France vowed yesterday to hunt down the vandals who scrawled anti-semitic graffiti on the country's chief Holocaust monument. Large, black swastikas were painted on to the memorial at Drancy, the site of the second world war deportation camp from where tens of thousands of Jews were sent to their deaths.

Local authorities said one of the people behind the defacement was captured on surveillance cameras and was believed to be a man in his 20s "of European origin".

The train carriage that was once used by the Nazis for deportations, and a stone pillar, were daubed with swastikas. Shopfronts in the towns of Drancy and Bobigny were also attacked, according to the police.

In a statement, the interior minister, Michelle Alliot-Marie, said: "Everything is being done to identify those responsible for these unspeakable acts and to bring them to justice."

The vandalism, in the middle of the Passover celebrations, sparked anger and unease among France's Jewish population, the largest in western Europe. The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions said such acts were indicative of a prejudice "deeply engrained" in French society. In a statement, the umbrella group condemned the graffiti at Drancy, denouncing it as an "insult to the whole of France".

The statement said: "Those responsible wanted to spit on the Jews deported from Drancy to death camps … insult the Jews who are celebrating Passover, the Jewish Easter … and dirty the town of Drancy."

Raphael Chemouni, responsible for the upkeep of the memorial, said it was the first time since the inauguration in 1976 that it had been daubed with swastikas. "Until now there has been a very great respect for this monument," he said.

Situated on the north-eastern outskirts of Paris, the internment camp was the site to which French Jews were taken on route to concentration camps in eastern Europe. By the time the camp was liberated in 1944, 65,000 people had been deported on board its trains, 63,000 of whom died. Although under overall control of the occupying Nazis, the day-to-day running of the camp was the responsibility of the Paris police force.

Lucien Tismander, from the Auschwitz Memorial Association, said this weekend's vandalism was particularly hurtful because of Drancy's symbolic importance in the history of France. "This monument is in a sense the tomb of the 76,000 French deportees and it has been sullied," he said.

Observer

Fascist firebomber out on parole

On Friday I was visited by Julian Corbett, from the Public Protection Department of Wiltshire Police.

He came to ask me what my relationship was with wannabe Nazi terrorist, Mark Bullman (pictured, left), and to warn me that Bullman is now out of prison, and is looking for me - I have moved address since he went to prison. Bullman had been sentenced to 5 years for racially aggravated arson, but has now been released after two and a half years. (Bullman also goes by the name Mark Bullock)

As I have reported before, in August 2006, BNP supporter, Bullman attempted to burn down the Broad Street mosque in Swindon using a petrol bomb. Mark was the registered fund holder for Wiltshire BNP, and actively campaigned for the party in the 2006 local council elections, just four months before the arson attack. Strangely Mark used to write to me while he was on remand, and even telephoned me from prison - not in a threatening way, but for a friendly chat.

He had left the BNP shortly before the fire bomb attack to form what he called the “1290 sect”, named after the year the Jews were expelled from England, and he wrote to me: “I only attacked the mosque because there is no synagogue in Swindon, and it was close enough for public consumption”. The fuse used for the fire bomb was a rolled up BNP leaflet.

It since transpires that Danny Lake, (former leader of the YBNP and also from Swindon, and who has since been expelled from the BNP), had raised concerns about Bullman with Nick Griffin, but the BNP did not consider Mark Bulman’s mental instablity, propensity to violence and gross anti-Semitism to be a problem. Bullman was supported by Wiltshire organiser, Mike Howson, and Danny Lake claims that Howson encouraged Bullmans’ extremism. Ironically, the main plank of Mike Howson’s campaigning in his native Corsham is “law and order”.

Mark’s letters to me, which I passed on to Searchlight, were filled with a virulent hatred of Jews, mixing up three themes. i) racialised anti-semitism; ii) Christian anti-judaic traditions; and iii) opposition to Israel’s War in the Lebanon, and the occupation of Palestine.

Bullman started [to] ring me regularly late at night sometime during 2005. I decided when Bullman contacted me that it was simply safer to talk to him than snub him, and establish a human relationship, and impress upon him that I was a real person with young children, not just an objectified “enemy”.

I knew that it was him who had fire bombed the mosque as soon as I saw the pictures, because the Swastika daubed on the outside wall was identical to the rather idiosyncratic style that Bullman had used in letters to me. But before I could go to the police I heard that Bullman had already been arrested, indeed he had turned himself in and confessed.

The police decided to contact me after Bullman told his probation officer last week that he had visited my old address, in Avenue Road, where in Bullman’s own words “a communist lived” and Bullman told the probation officer he wanted to apologise to me.

Fair enough, I actually take that at face value. For all his weaknesses Bullman is a troubled and actually quite likable lad. He seems to have always been a bit of a misfit, and found a group of friends who accepted him through football hooliganism and far right politics. It was quite spooky having the police do an audit of the security of my house, and checking out the approaches to it in case they decided I was in serious danger and they had to put me on a rapid response list.

I was actually quite encouraged that they were also assessing the risk to Bullman himself. The bewildered lad has been playing games in his head with his Nazi fantasies, irresponsibly encouraged by BNP activists who exploited him. And his attempts to contact me suggest that he is drawn back to revisiting the same haunts and habits that he was in before his arrest.

Bullman fire bombed a mosque and daubed it with Swastikas. I am prepared to be understanding to Bullman only because I have had personal contact with him, and I have some partial insight into what a troubled and unhappy young man he is; who really needs help and not to be further ostracised and isolated from society. But other people might be less understanding and charitable about what he did than I am.

What really is scandalous is the way the BNP used this young man. They had no problem with exploiting his obvious mental distress, they had no problem with his open support for genocide against the Jews, instead they encouraged him, they used him up and spat him out.

Socialist Unity

'Racist planned terror attacks'

A man who wanted to save Britain from "multi-racial peril" made nail bombs to further his cause through terror attacks, a court has heard.

Martyn Gilleard, 31, "admired Nazism" and had links to white supremacist organisations, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told. Four home-made nail bombs were found at his flat along with "potentially lethal bladed weapons", the prosecution said.

Mr Gilleard, of Goole, East Yorkshire, denies all terrorism charges. He denies preparing for terrorist acts and possessing articles and collecting information for terrorist purposes.

Andrew Edis QC, opening the case for the prosecution, told the jury how police found the nail bombs under a bed in Mr Gilleard's flat. Officers also discovered "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, Mr Edis said.

These included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to poison someone to death, he added.

'Bar-stool nationalism'

The jury heard how other material found at the flat revealed Mr Gilleard was "a man of white supremacist groupings" and had an agenda similar to the National Socialists, or Nazis.

Describing the contents of one document written by Mr Gilleard, Mr Edis said: "He had come to decide that it was time to stop talking and start acting. There had been too much bar-stool nationalism and not enough courageous action to save this country from the multi-racial peril he believes it is in."

Mr Edis told the court it was "pretty clear" Mr Gilleard was "a man who admires Nazism".

He said the defendant's usual password was Martyn1488 - the number 14 referring to a 14-word phrase coined by David Lane, the founder of an American white supremacist paramilitary organisation. The prosecution said the phrase stated: "We must secure the existence of our race and the future for white children."

The jury was also told the use of 88 related to the letter H - the eighth letter of the alphabet - and HH referred to the "Heil Hitler" salute. Police also found a drawing of a Union flag with a swastika on it at the flat and Lane's 14 words written out, Mr Edis said.

'No harm intended'

The prosecution went on to describe how Mr Gilleard had admitted in police interviews that he sympathised with the views of white supremacists and accepted he was a racist.

However, Mr Gilleard also said he had become less racist recently and that he made the nail bombs to see if he could do it and did not think they would work, the court heard. He told police he did not intend to harm anybody.

Mr Edis told the jury it was down to them to decide if Mr Gilleard intended to use the bombs and weapons in terrorist acts. It was the prosecution's case that Mr Gilleard had the weapons and documents "for use in connection with furthering his political cause", he added.

The court was told Mr Gilleard had already pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.

The trial continues.

BBC

Hatewatch for the week of January 30th 2008

Man Indicted On Federal Conspiracy Charges For Displaying Noose
Jeremiah Munsen, 18, and a juvenile member of the Ku Klux Klan allegedly conspired in criminal threats and harassment by attaching nooses to pick-up trucks and then repeatedly driving past civil rights marchers gathered at a bus depot last September...

Bombmaker Suspected Of Targeting Synagogues
A man with an arsenal of weapons in his apartment who was arrested for making pipe bombs confessed to scrawling swastikas on synagogues in his neighborhood, police said...

FBI Investigates Mormon Seminary Vandalism
The FBI considers anti-Mormon graffiti spray-painted outside a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seminary building to be a hate crime...

Accused Cross Burners Charged With Hate Crimes
Two white men who allegedly burned a cross on a black family's lawn last November were charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime in addition to aggravated harassment and arson...

Hatewatch

Halloween horror of graffiti vandals

Spray-can vandals spent Halloween night defacing a largely Jewish area.

Walls, fences and street signs in several roads in Radlett, Hertfordshire, were daubed with antisemitic graffiti. On the worst-affected road, The Drive, swastikas and slogans including “Fuck the Jews”, “I hate Jews” and “Die Packies [sic]” were painted on the Tarmac and pavements. The letters NF, BNP and KKK were also daubed and eggs were thrown at one house.

A 71-year-old man, who lives nearby but asked not to be named, said the graffiti had reduced him to tears. “I’m not Jewish, but I lived through the war and couldn’t understand then how man could do that to another man. Now I feel things haven’t changed. I’m appalled. It’s a close community here and we are all united over this.”

A 41-year-old mother-of-four, who also requested anonymity, said she believed those responsible came from outside Radlett “and targeted the area specifically because there are many Jewish people”.

She added: “It’s frightening because I have children and it’s not a good feeling when someone hates you. These weren’t brave people. They did it in the middle of the night and then ran.”

Other residents echoed their sentiments.

PC Suzan Loughran, a hate-crimes officer from Hertfordshire police, wrote to people who complained acknowledging that “the damage was clearly antisemitic and offensive and caused distress to many people”. She said CCTV images would be examined and a can retrieved at the scene would be tested for fingerprints.

Chief Inspector Mark Hunter said: “We are taking every course of action to trace those responsible. I want to reassure residents that incidents of this nature are rare in Hertfordshire. But they will not be tolerated.”

Jewish Chronicle

Nazi attack on Scottish war graves

Vandals have painted swastikas and Nazi symbols over graves of Scottish soldiers who died in the Battle of the Somme.

French police are hunting the vandals who attacked the graves of 32 soldiers killed during the First World War in the battle for Contalmaison. The incident has resulted in thousands of pounds' of damage in an attack described by a Scottish historian as an "appalling desecration" days before Remembrance Sunday.

Peake Wood Cemetery, near the village of Contalmaison, records 103 fallen Allied soldiers and is one of many small plots scattered across battlefields, each with their distinctive white headstones administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGS). The cemetery marks the spot from which the final assault was made on Contalmaison on 1 July, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme and the scene of much heavy fighting by Scottish battalions.

The site is yards from a memorial to McCrae's Battalion, the celebrated Edinburgh unit formed with a large number of professional footballers, many from Heart of Midlothian FC.

Captain Lionel Coles, the Watsonian commander of the footballers' company, 16th Battalion the Royal Scots, was killed on the edge of the cemetery. Jack Alexander, who wrote the history of the battalion and who serves on the committee of the charitable trust that cares for the memorial that was erected in 2004, said he was disgusted by the vandalism. "As we move towards Remembrance Sunday, this appalling desecration is not the kind of thing we expect to see," he said.

The CWGC was notified of the attack last week and immediately arranged for the graffiti to be removed. Peter Francis, a spokesman, said: "It took a whole day. We were shocked and very, very angry."

Jacky Tonnel, the mayor of Fricourt district, which includes the cemetery, said: "I am outraged. Nothing like this has ever happened in Fricourt before and I can't understand it. I don't know if it was some kind of stupid game, whether it was adults or youths who did this, but one thing is for sure: it is scandalous and unacceptable."

Sir George McCrae raised his battalion of troops in less than a fortnight, thanks largely to the keenness with which many Hearts players enlisted. The club was top of the league when war broke out in 1914 and its players were renowned as some of the best footballers anywhere. But just four years later, there was barely a player left who had survived unscathed.

Contalmaison, just outside the town of Albert, was reached by McCrae's force in July 1916.

Scotsman

Israel's nightmare: Homegrown neo-Nazis in the Holy Land

Swastikas daubed on the walls of synagogues. 'Heil Hitler' salutes. People beaten in the streets because they are Jewish. Where could this be? Germany? Eastern Europe? Try Israel. Neo-Nazism has taken root in the very nation forged from the ashes of the Holocaust.

Rivka Zagaron, a 75-year-old Holocaust survivor, left her home in the Israeli port city of Haifa one September morning for her daily stroll along the beach. As she walked, two young men accosted her and shouted: "Heil Hitler!" One of them kicked her, the other cursed her. When she managed to get away, she saw them beating a street sweeper. "I never thought," she said afterwards, "that in our country I would hear the words 'Heil Hitler'."

The attack took place a week after the arrest of eight neo-Nazis in the Tel Aviv satellite town of Petah Tikva, an incident that stunned Israel. Like the old lady, the people of this country had thought that the Jewish state, founded on the ashes of Auschwitz, was immune to the neo-Nazi virus. But the epidemic seems to be spreading, raising serious questions about Israel's failure to adjust to the multicultural society of Jews and non-Jews it has become.

Last week, police arrested two 13-year-old boys on suspicion of daubing swastikas and naked women on the door of a Haifa synagogue. A 19-year-old was charged with setting fire to a booth where Haifa's religious Jews celebrated the Sukkot festival. In Bnei Brak, a predominantly Orthodox town near Tel Aviv, someone painted "Heil Hitler" on a synagogue wall.

According to the police, the Petah Tikva gang met every few days with their leader, Eli Buatinov, the self-styled "Eli the Nazi", to decide who and where to strike next. Buatinov is quoted as saying he would never have children because his grandfather was half Jewish, and he didn't want to father a "piece of trash with even the smallest percentage of Jewish blood".

The gang members' arms are tattooed with Nazi and white power symbols. Though they protest their innocence, they are expected to come to trial later this month on charges of assault, illegally possessing weapons and denying the Holocaust.

Members of the cell, aged 16 to 21, are Russian immigrants. One is Jewish, the rest were admitted to Israel under the Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent – the same criterion adopted by the Third Reich for sending Jews to the gas chambers. In the former Soviet Union, their families were defined on their identity cards as "ethnic Russians". In Israel, they are outsiders, frustrated and angry. Neo-Nazism is a way to hit back where they know it hurts.

One of the gang's alleged victims was Anatoly Levin, a 38-year-old Orthodox Jew with a bushy black beard and black hat who emigrated from St Petersburg 12 years ago. He was walking home through a park late one night after a Talmud study session when two teenage skinheads mocked him and made anti-Semitic jokes in Russian.

When they started throwing stones, he threw them back. One of theirs hit his leg, and another struck a passing car. As the driver jumped out, the boys ran off. Levin, a geriatric nurse, continued on his way, but the two skinheads attacked him again, this time with wooden clubs, and broke his right hand. He says he couldn't escape because of his injured leg. The boys fled when he yelled "Police!" and people rushed out to see what was going on.

Zalman Gilichenski, a Russian immigrant teacher who runs a help and information line for victims of anti-Semitism, says neo-Nazism is widespread in the Jewish state. "There are groups in many towns. They distribute cassettes and written material. They began with graffiti, and then graduated to beatings."

The police say there are more individuals than groups. They spray-paint swastikas, vandalise synagogues, taunt recognisably religious Jews and terrorise people who look vulnerable – the homeless, homosexuals, drunks, old people. There is no evidence of a coordinated nationwide movement, no Führer, no Oswald Mosley figure. But the Petah Tikva gang was unusually well-organised.

The Petah Tikva youths were caught after they made videos of their rampages and posted them on a viciously anti-Semitic Russian website. One showed them savagely beating a Thai worker in the Tel Aviv bus station. The site, Format 18, said the images had been sent by "our comrades in Israel".

***

The use of a website was no accident. Russian racism is going global. The Israeli neo-Nazis draw their inspiration from the thriving radical right in Mother Russia, where Vladimir Putin's Interior Ministry estimates there are 70,000 white-supremacist skinheads. A poll this summer found that 35 per cent of Russians dislike Jews.

Sergei Makarov, a researcher who monitors Russian racism from Jerusalem, says: "You can't understand neo-Nazis in Israel if you don't understand the upsurge in neo-Nazism in Russia. It's nourished by what's going on back home. These people came from there, and they are in touch through the internet."

Despite the Russians' bitter memories of their "Great Patriotic War" against Germany, groups there flaunt the Nazi connection. One, the National Socialist Forum, boasts that 80,000 messages have been posted on its website. It claims 1,500 regular participants and 343 visits a day. One of its contributors calls himself "Dr Goebbels".

Some groups are reported to hold military training camps. They have headquarters, weapons caches and firing ranges. Neo-Nazism is banned in Russia, but tolerated. When violators are prosecuted, the sentences tend to be light.

The Russian ultra-nationalists, nostalgic for the glory of the Czars, target immigrant workers from the former Soviet Asian republics, as well as Jews. The National Socialist Party of Russia posted a gruesome video clip of its members stabbing and decapitating two Muslim "aliens" from Dagestan and Tajikistan. "Our party is a fighting avant-garde of the National Socialist struggle," it bragged.

Another nationalist website, Russkoe Delo ("Russian Cause"), accused the "Zhids" (Yids) of seeking to dominate the world and of encouraging white women to have sex with black men, who infect them with Aids. "The Jews, through their knavish propaganda, infect the minds of white women and inspire them to look at the Niggers with friendliness and benevolence," it wrote. "We must protect our women. We must liberate their minds from the Zhid obsession."

Up to 300,000 of the one million emigrants who flocked to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 do not identify themselves as Jewish. The families came because the gates were suddenly thrown open and the economic prospects looked brighter in Israel than Russia. Some are the gentile spouses of people with a half-forgotten Jewish grandparent. Others are the children of previous all-gentile marriages, who have no connection to Jewish history or the Jewish religion. Their divorced parent married a Jew. To complicate things further, in Russia ethnicity is defined by the father's origins, in Israel by the mother's. So a child could be a Jew in Russia and a Russian in Israel.

It is estimated that 20 to 25 per cent of this post-Soviet wave have failed to integrate into Israeli society. Children came to Israel because their parents brought them. Immigrants account for 42 per cent of all school drop-outs, although they are only 11.5 per cent of the total school population. Even those who have been successfully absorbed remember being tormented as "stinking Russians" and told to "get back to Russia", mostly by working-class North African children of a previous mass immigration.

A recent Hebrew University study found that only one third of Russian immigrant teenagers identifies themselves as Israeli. In a society with no binge-booze culture, about 90 per cent of them reported drinking alcohol in the past year. One third said they got drunk at least four times, while 36 per cent admitted using drugs. Almost a third of those who took drugs said they had committed violent acts under the influence.

Marina Solodkin, a Russian member of the Israeli parliament and former deputy minister of immigrant absorption, says: "Neo-Nazi activity is the way a young generation that has not found itself in Israel protests. They've lost their identity. They are not Jews, they are not Israelis. They are Russians who are not accepted, not in schools, not in the families of other children."

Eli Zarkhin, an educational counsellor who runs the Israel Association for Immigrant Children, says: "We're talking about 40,000 children who are not Jewish and identify themselves as not Jewish. It adds one more difficulty. They already have problems in Israel because it's a foreign country, because it has a foreign language, because there are foreign cultural codes, because their parents are busy with their own integration and can't help the children, and because there are no programmes in schools to bring these children closer to Israel.

"There is no Nazi ideology, but there is a lot of anger. We used to see graffiti against the Moroccans. Now we see it against the Jews, who represent for them the Israel that doesn't want to accept them. These teenagers are looking for provocative symbols. They use the swastika because they know it makes Jews angry. It also makes the educational authorities take notice of them. They get attention."

Zarkhin cites the case of Sasha, whose family settled in the Mediterranean town of Ashqelon when he was eight. "He feels he is a Russian, he grew up as a Russian. He had a Russian father and a Russian mother. One day his mother came home and said his father's grandfather was Jewish, so they were allowed to go to Israel. Life there was easier. They could earn more money."

In Ashqelon, Sasha went to a school where half the children were Russian-speaking and half native Israelis. "Nobody accepted him," Zarkhin reports. "Even the Russian-speaking children didn't want to deal with him because he was a goy. They hit him, they called him names. He has problems with Hebrew. His parents are working. So, more and more he started fighting in school. On one occasion he said, "It's a pity Hitler didn't kill you." When we talked to him, he knew nothing about Hitler, except that Hitler killed Jews."

***

Israel takes pride in fulfilling its Zionist mission and has absorbed more than three million Jews from 100 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas over the past 60 years. But critics protest that a country whose raison d'etre is to be the state of the Jews has yet to come to terms with multiculturalism – the presence of nearly one and a half million Arab citizens, 20 per cent of the total population, and tens of thousands of Russian non-Jews, as well as long-term immigrant workers who care for the aged, till the fields and build the cities.

"Being Jewish doesn't mean to be against other nations," says Eli Zarkhin. "We have a reality. Israel is not the state of the Jews only. We should take it into account, we should deal with it. The government should do more to make others feel they belong. Maybe a state with a Jewish majority, a state with Jewish values of all people being equal, all people having rights, can work too." More bluntly, the Arabs demand "a state of all its citizens".

Anatoly Gerasimov, another advocate of multiculturalism, is trying to give the ethnic Russians a voice through a new lobby, the Russian Centre of Culture and Information. Gerasimov, a dapper 49-year-old Christian who worked as a nurse, denounces successive Israeli governments for failing to adopt a clear and policy on minorities.

"In Israel," he complains, "all problems revolve around Jews and their conflict with the Arabs. National minorities have long been cast to the margins of cultural, public and political life. The state refuses to perceive hundreds of thousands of citizens, working in industry, studying in schools and universities, serving in the army as full members of society.

"Every fourth citizen of Israel is non-Jewish, but open any newspaper and you will not see

anything about our non-Jewish holidays, about the history of our presence in the Holy Land, or about our communal activities. Last year our Russian community participated in an international youth sports festival in Moscow. Our boys and girls brought gold and silver medals back to Israel. Not a line was written about it in Israeli newspapers. Even Russian-speaking MPs gave them no encouragement.

"Israel has problems with non-Jews? Israel has one greater problem – the absence of a desire to cooperate with us in solving the vital issues of Jews and non-Jews living together in the Holy Land."

Marina Solodkin, the immigrant MP, says that many of the mixed Russian families came to Israel because they wanted to be one thing or the other. "If they had Jewish blood, they wanted to be Jewish." Israel, she protests, has not made it easy for them. The Orthodox rabbis still run the conversion process. They try to impose a pious way of life that is alien to most veteran Israelis, who manage to be both Jewish and secular. Converts are expected to keep the Sabbath and observe kosher dietary laws. Inspectors reserve the right to make random checks that they are not back-sliding.

Women are ordered to stop wearing trousers, which are regarded as masculine and thus immodest. Girls are forbidden to join the army, though it is widely accepted that military service offers their best route to integration. The rabbis don't want them hanging out with the opposite sex. "Not everyone," Solodkin insists, "wants to live the strict Orthodox way of life."

Coalition constraints keep the more liberal Reform rabbis at arm's length. Ehud Olmert, like previous prime ministers, needs the support of at least one Orthodox religious party to stay in office. These groups fight every effort to recognise Reform Judaism.

***

So far, anti-Semitic hate crimes are restricted to the young. But some older non-Jewish immigrants quietly share their smouldering resentment at the discrimination and ostracism they have experienced. They seek comfort in old prejudices.

A Russian-language bookshop near Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda market stocks anti-Semitic books and Holocaust denial material among its shelves of novels, thrillers, science fiction and DVDs. They are on open display. One, What We don't Like about Them, an anti-Jewish tract by Vasily Shulgin, first published in 1929 and reprinted in 2005, has the exiled Jewish oligarch Boris Berezovsky on its cover. Another, by Alexei Mukhin, is dedicated to "Jewish Elites". It features the familiar smiling face of Chelsea's Roman Abramovich.

Vladimir, the bookshop owner, a mild-mannered intellectual who asks us not to publish his second name, reports a steady demand from older customers. He draws the line at Hitler's Mein Kampf and the notorious century-old forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purports to map a Jewish takeover of the world. "As for the rest," he shrugs, "I'm in the business of selling books."

For the 75 to 80 per cent of Russians who made it, the post-Soviet immigration has been a success story. Most of them were educated people with modern skills. Once they got over the initial difficulties, they found jobs. Israel's orchestras are full of Russian musicians. Russian doctors and nurses man its hospitals. Engineers and mathematicians work in the country's high-tech industries.

Lisa Rubchinsky, a 29-year-old hairdresser who came here alone when she was 18, says: "At first I felt hatred of Russians in the street, in the market. But I'm a strong person. I know how to defend myself. If you've chosen to come here, you have to try to be part of this country. Don't blame other people."

She admits that it's been easier for her than for some of her friends. Unlike them, she doesn't look Slavic.

The Law of Return: immigration and Israel

The Law of Return was first passed by Israel's parliament, the Knesset, on 5 July, 1950. It established a system for allowing foreign nationals to "make aliyah" (emigrate to the country) and claim citizenship.

Originally, the right to become an Israeli was restricted to practising Jews. But an amendment in 1970 broadened the definition to anyone who had just one Jewish grandparent. The move aimed to help all those who had been defined as Jews (and hence persecuted) under the Nuremberg Laws during the Nazi Holocaust, and to bolster Israel's Jewish population against the perceived demographic "threat" of a rising Arab population.

Following the collapse of Communism, there was an explosion in the number of emigrants from the former Soviet Union, where authorities had previously placed heavy restrictions on the numbers of Jews who could leave the country. Since 1990, more than a million Russian migrants have made the move, forming a significant minority in a country of only seven million.

Many of these newcomers have claimed that they face discrimination in the job market and in wider Israeli society, fuelling a sense of alienation. Opponents, for their part, argue that many of the new arrivals have only a tenuous connection to Judaism and affinity with the Jewish community.

Other major ethnic groups in Israel include Ashkenazim (European Jews), Mizrahim (descendents of Jewish communities elsewhere in the Middle East), Sephardim (those from the Iberian peninsula), and Ethiopian and Indian Jews, not to mention the one million-plus Israeli Arab community. There are also a large number of non-Jewish immigrant workers, who also claim to have faced discrimination.

Independent

Swastikas sprayed on college walls

A series of swastikas have been daubed on the walls of Swindon College. The graffiti was discovered as students arrived for lectures on Monday at the college's North Star campus.

Jaginder Bassi of Swindon's Racial Equality Council said he thought a leaflet by the British National Party against a possible mosque near the site might explain the damage. But the BNP has strongly denied responsibility for the graffiti and said it is not the type of thing they would do.

College maintenance staff removed the swastikas on Monday, which were daubed on an exterior wall in red and black paint. But the episode has left a bad taste in the mouths of college staff.

Swindon College spokeswoman Amanda Burnside said: "We think it was done over the weekend. From the school's point of view it is very regrettable, particularly since it has happened to the new college building."

When asked if a student had done the damage, the college's marketing manager refused to rule it out. She said: "We can never say never about the possibility that it was done by a student but it would be extremely disappointing if that were the case. Most of our students respect the new buildings and are proud of their surroundings. We have security guards on patrol at weekends to minimise the chance of these type of incidents."

Mr Bassi said: "I am quite surprised by this graffiti because it has not appeared in Swindon for a while. After a member of the British National Party was taken into custody last year the problem seemed to have gone away."

Mr Bassi thought one explanation was a leaflet being distributed by the BNP. The pamphlet he refers to is titled Swindon Super-Mosque?' and has been distributed around the North Star area. It attacks the possible construction of a new mosque on open ground near Osborne Road, and can be seen on the party's website. And though Thamesdown Islamic Association has not submitted any planning proposal, Mr Bassi thinks the leaflet explains why the swastikas appeared.

He said: "This graffiti may or may not be linked but it seems plausible. It is trying to create discord and antagonise people when there isn't anything going on."

But the BNP denied any involvement with the graffiti. Mike Howson, the BNP chairman for Wiltshire, said: "This incident has nothing to do with us and is probably some left-wing individual with too much time on their hands. We don't even know why people contact us about this kind of thing because the days of racist graffiti are long gone. As I say, it must have been someone who was bored and wanted to cause a stir."

This is Wiltshire

Swastikas daubed on couple's home

A County Antrim man newly married to an African nurse says he is living in fear after racist slogans and swastikas were painted on their home. Paul Morton's car was also damaged during the incident in Portballintrae near Bushmills on Wednesday night.

Mr Morton and his wife had just moved into the house in July, and police are treating the attack as a hate crime. He told the BBC's Evening Extra that he was scared that they may come back and carry out more serious attacks.

"They could throw things through your windows or pour stuff through your letterbox," he said. "You never know what's going to happen - it has come as a total shock."

The attackers poured paint stripper on their car. It happened at about 0100 BST. His wife was not at home at the time, as she attends nursing college in Dublin. Mr Morton said they have not experienced any animosity in the village since the wedding.

"I'm born and bred in Bushmills and it's a complete shock - you always hear about these things happening but never expect it to happen to you," he said. "To think it's maybe somebody you've known all your life who did it makes it even worse."

Police have appealed for information.

BBC

Israeli neo-Nazi ring caught after attacks on synagogues

Police in Israel have uncovered a neo-Nazi ring which was responsible for vandalising synagogues and carrying out attacks on Jews and foreign workers in Israel, a court was told yesterday.

The group of eight Russian immigrants aged between 18 and 21 appeared in court following an 18-month investigation into attacks on two synagogues in which swastikas were painted on the walls of the buildings. The men covered their heads with their shirts during the hearing, revealing arms tattooed with Nazi imagery.

More than a million people from the former Soviet Union have emigrated to Israel, which has a population of seven million, since 1990, taking advantage of Israel's Law of Return which allows anyone to claim citizenship if they have a Jewish grandparent. Many of the new immigrants have little connection to Judaism and emigrated for economic reasons.

Many Russians live in large communities in Israel's cities in which they have little interaction with other Israelis.

They have their own supermarkets where pork is available, unlike in the majority of stores. Russians feel they are victims of discrimination in Israel and many are denied the right to marry by the Jewish authorities. Police named the leader of the neo-Nazi gang as Eli Boanitov, 19, from Petah Tikvah, a city next to Tel Aviv.

Boanitov, who was known as "Eli the Nazi", told police: "I won't ever give up. I was a Nazi and I will stay a Nazi, until we kill them all I will not rest." In one conversation recorded by the police, Boanitov tells one of his fellow gang members: "My grandfather was a half-Jewboy. I will not have children so that this trash will not be born with even a tiny per cent of Jewboy blood."

During the investigation, police seized video recordings of the suspects attacking foreign workers. One of the videos shows the gang members attacking a Russian drug addict, striking him until he bled and forcing him to ask forgiveness of the Russian people for being a Jewish drug addict.

The search also revealed photographs of the suspects wearing Nazi clothing, using the Nazi salute and calling for the burning of Jews. Explosive materials were found in the home of one of the suspects.

Police also found recordings of conversations between gang members, in one they planned how to celebrate the Führer's birthday, and in another they planned a Nazi ceremony at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

The Anti Defamation League, a New York-based group that fights anti-Semitism, praised the arrest of the neo-Nazis but warned Israelis not to stigmatise the whole Russian community for the actions of a few members.

"The suspicion that immigrants to Israel could have been acting in praise of Nazis and Hitler is anathema to the Jewish state and is to be repelled," the organisation said in a statement. "Members of the group were reportedly from the former Soviet Union and were religiously identified as Christians.

"They were allowed to immigrate to Israel on the basis of law of return which grants even grandchildren of Jews sanctuary in the Jewish state.

"The tragic irony in this is that they would have been chosen for annihilation by the Nazis they strive to emulate." The ADL said that the phenomenon appeared to be marginal and was more a reaction to anti-Russian discrimination in Israel.

Israeli politicians reacted with anger to the revelations and proposed several changes in the law to prevent a repeat of neo-Nazi actions. Effi Eitam of the National Religious Party said he would propose a bill in the Knesset that would restrict the rights of non-Jews to emigrate to Israel.

Ahmed Tibi, an Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, said that the case illustrated the absurdity of Israeli laws which give extensive rights to newcomers from Russia while denying them to Arab residents who had lived in the region for generations.

Guardian

Hatewatch for the week of August 15th 2007

National Alliance Leader Sentenced to 87 Months in Prison
Shaun Walker, the national chairman of the National Alliance, was sentenced to prison for conspiring to violate federal civil rights laws...

Aryan Brotherhood Expanding in New Mexico and Texas
Recent federal indictments show that the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison-based gang, is increasingly active outside of prisons in New Mexico and Texas...

Prussian Blue Documentary Contains 'Profoundly Creepy' Scenes
The new documentary "Nazi Pop Twins" is an equally revealing and unsettling look into the lives of Lynx and Lamb Gaede and their white nationalist stage mom April Gaede...

Police Increase Patrols After Racist Vandalism
White supremacist slogans and swastikas were spray-painted on the walls of a skate park in Fitchburg, Md...

New Trial Begins in Racially Motivated Baseball Bat Attack
Self-avowed white supremacist Brian Neilson, 29, will be retried for attacking a black couple with a baseball bat inside their home while they slept...

SPLC

Jewish cemetery cleaned of Nazi symbols

Poland's chief rabbi and a town mayor joined students cleaning gravestones Tuesday at a Jewish cemetery that vandals had desecrated with Nazi symbols.

Rabbi Michael Schudrich said that he and Tadeusz Wrona, mayor of the southern city of Czestochowa, joined about 20 Polish art students who spent two hours scrubbing black paint off some of 100 gravestones at the city's Jewish cemetery.

Police discovered Sunday that the letters SS, swastikas, and the slogan ''Jews Out'' were written on the gravetones in German. They are still searching for the culprits.

''The fact is, there is anti-Semitism everywhere. But what is also important is the reaction of the rest of society,'' Schudrich said. ''Too often the rest of society tolerates these things. But in this case, the mayor and the young people didn't sit at home and wait for someone else to come clean it up. They came out and made a physical - not just verbal - reaction.''

The group donned gloves and used strong chemicals to remove the oil-based paint. Due to the difficulty of removing the paint, and the risk of damaging inscriptions with the chemical, the efforts would have to be continued by professional cleaners, Schudrich said.

Poland was home to about 3.5 million Jews - Europe's largest Jewish community - until World War II, when most were killed by Nazi Germany. Today there are an estimated 30,000 Jews living in this predominantly Catholic country.

Yahoo News

Nazi Pop Twins - Tonight on Channel Four 10.30pm

Nazi Pop Twins

Thursday 19 July
10:30pm - 11:35pm
Channel Four

This is the kind of programme Louis Theroux should have fronted, dealing as it does with a family of American nutcases. Lynx and Lamb Gaede are 14-year-old twins from California who have stirred up controversy with their band Prussian Blue by singing white nationalist songs and wearing T-shirts with Hitler moustaches.

In fact, their behaviour did lead Theroux to include them in a 2003 documentary, but here James Quinn finds out how they've fared since becoming a cause célèbre. Quinn's theory is that their mother is using them as a mouthpiece for her extreme beliefs - beliefs the twins have come to question. He never quite proves this, but he does capture extraordinary moments.

Most startling is the sunlit scene at the family corral, where men in stetsons brand their cattle - with swastikas.

VIDEO Plus+: 2655451

Nice T-shirts, girls.

Sick yobs daub Nazi slogans on D Day veteran's house

War hero Arnold Holland was devastated after yobs daubed his home with swastikas and the words 'Nazi'.

Arnold, 85, a torpedo man with the Royal Navy throughout World War Two, survived but saw friends die as he protected vital convoys for the war effort. And yesterday he said : "I wonder now if it was all worth it. To have swastikas and 'Nazi' painted on my home is the final insult to someone who fought against Hitler and all he stood for. The ignorant idiots who did are even so ill-educated they don't even know which way the swastika emblem goes they painted it on the wrong way round." The graffiti is the latest attack on the home where Arnold lives with Annie, 84, his wife of 64 years who was born in the house in Normanton Springs, Sheffield.

And so far police have been unable to trace the vandals despite a series of incidents including: bitumen daubed on windows, breeze blocks hurled through windows, false adverts being placed saying the house is for sale.

But with angina, arthritis, only one lung and extremely severe digestion problems frail Arnold feels he can't bear to begin the latest clean-up operation.

He said: "We just don't know where to turn any more. We are in our eighties we shouldn't have to live like this, It's terrible and it's making us ill. I don't know why we are being picked on. We've lived here since we were married and until the last few years there was never any problem. But we can't put up with this all the time. We're really at the end of our tether. These people are just cowards who come in the night and do the damage. I don't know what they are trying to achieve."

Added Annie: "We rely on the law but it doesn't seem to get any better. We are just so fed up and now the swastikas are there for everybody to see."

Inspector Colin Mcfarlane of South Yorkshire Police said: "This is a serious matter and we are currently pursuing all possible lines of enquiry to identify the persons responsible. We are urging anyone who knows who is responsible to come forward."

Daily Mail