Germans in Bremen, Stuttgart lash out at Israelis

Doorman at anti-Semitism event bars Israeli from entering; city worker shows two-thumbs up to comment of family killed by Nazis.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
Germany Left Party leaders 311 R (photo credit: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)
Germany Left Party leaders 311 R
(photo credit: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)
BERLIN – German authorities and a doorman at a Left Party event abused Israelis over the past few days in Bremen and Stuttgart.
A doorman at an event on anti-Semitism barred an Israeli from entering the “controversial lecture” in the northern city of Bremen, the mass-circulation Bild reported on Wednesday. The Left Party’s branch in Weser, a district in Bremen, participated in the event.
Maor S., 31, said, “I am a Jew from Israel and want to enter” the event. A doorman told him, “Everything is already owned by you, including the media.”
The doorman’s “contention is a hit among anti- Semites,” Bild wrote.
Noemi K, who is Jewish and Maor’s friend, asked the doorman “if he meant Jews,” and “received no response.”
A second doorman appeared and played down the statement about Jews owning the media, teacher Noemi K., 26, said, adding, “But there was nothing to be misunderstood” about the anti-Semitic statement.
The Bremen state Left Party branch distanced itself from the event, complaining about the participation of the Weser Left Party group.
Meanwhile, in the southern German city of Stuttgart, the local authorities allegedly insulted an elderly Israeli couple.
The Israeli couple came to visit a “stumbling stone” memorial for five members of their family who were murdered by Nazis, the Stuttgarter Zeitung reported on Tuesday.
A dispute over the correct subway tickets and registration of the tickets with the transportation authorities resulted in one of the officials apparently praising the murder of the family’s members in the Holocaust.
According to Susanne Bouché, whom the Israeli couple visited, the Israeli man explained to three transportation control personnel in English that he was in Stuttgart because his ancestors were murdered.
The employees laughed, according to the Stuttgart paper. A female transportation employee showed a “two-thumbs up” reaction to the Israeli man’s comment about the Nazis murdering his family.
Barbara Traub, chairwoman of the Jewish community center in Stuttgart, said it was “horrible” for the couple to have experienced the insults in the subway.
The Stuttgart transportation agency SSB declined to comment on the incident.
Stuttgart Mayor Fritz Kuhn of the Green Party called for a report into the insults and will issue a comment after review of the investigation.