Holiday Shock: Nazi Greeting Cards Sent To Unsuspecting Recipients
It's just disgusting. Houston's Channel 13 News gives us the story:
(12/19/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) - Millions of Christmas cards are in the mail, but we discovered one card that many call disturbing - especially since the card is filled with racial expletives, and claims to have come from the University of St Thomas.
The video is on the site.
The University of St. Thomas is a Catholic University in Houston which is quite un-Nazi in its operations -- an interfaith lecture on character development is among their upcoming events. The culprit not only sent out his Nazi filth with University of St. Thomas as a return address, but also Rice University. As was noted in the televised story, this is information so offensive that your average person wouldn't buy, say, the "Nazi Journal" or put himself or herself on a Nazi mailing list. However, under the guise of legitimacy lent by a name of a respected institution, their hate fliers find their way into more homes. The Houstonist has more.
If it were just happening in Houston, dayenu, it would be enough.
From the European Jewish Press:
Polish nationalists produce Christmas cards featuring Nazi saluteWARSAW (EJP)--- Activists from the ultra-right-wing nationalist party, the National Rebirth of Poland (NOP) have been sending out Christmas cards by email to members of parliament that show a picture of Santa Claus giving the Nazi salute. Below the illustration is a slogan calling for a "Free, Nationalist and Catholic" Poland.
According to NOP leader Adam Gmurczyk, the cards were partly-inspired by a recent media storm that began when film footage of members of the League of Polish Families’ (LPR) youth wing, the All Polish Youth (MW), was released showing them making ‘Heil Hitler’ gestures to a backdrop of Nazi symbols.
Were they wrongfully being labeled as Nazi or were they promoting Nazi ideologies?
Gmurczyk said that similar "hysteria" had accompanied the images of the All Polish Youth members, who were filmed at an outdoor party in Silesia in 2004 displaying unambiguous sympathy for Hitler’s ideas.Behind them on the images – which were published by the daily newspaper ‘Dziennik’ – was a burning torch in the form of a swastika, as well as a Nazi flag alongside that of Poland’s.
Gmurczyk was dismissive of the seriousness of MW’s behaviour in Silesia. "It was enough for the All Polish Youth to make some gestures for journalists to think that Fascism had arrived," he said. The NOP exists on the extreme fringes of Polish politics but is the oldest post-war nationalist party. It engaged in direct action against the Communist government until its downfall in 1989.
It exists as a legal party although it is openly anti-Semitic and was involved this year in a campaign to release convicted Holocaust denier David Irving from prison in Austria.
You'll just have to excuse me if I misinterpret that. A burning swastika torch really gives me the whole Nazi vibe.
Polish anti-Semitism is already anecdotal, and the Catholic Church's role in it is older news than the Vatican itself.
But at least I always thought that on some level, there was a separation between church and hate. Rarely did you see religious symbols being usurped by Nazi organizations -- with the obvious exception of the swastika -- and certainly not saints transformed into SS-flag wavers. But this year, two mass mailings went out with the same message. Disgusting precedents.
Comments
Hey! Thanks for the plug. Can you put me on your permanent links? thanks again
Avrohom
Posted by: Avrohom Adler | December 25, 2006 10:35 PM