Anti-Semitic books sold in Frankfurt

Last year Arabic booksellers were criticized for peddling translations of Holocaust denial works.

By TOBY AXELROD / JTA
protocols 88 (photo credit: )
protocols 88
(photo credit: )
English-language copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford's The International Jew were displayed on the shelves of one of the Iranian booksellers at the fair, according to German political scientist Matthias Kuentzel, who purchased the books there last Friday. Last year, the book fair, one of the world's largest gatherings of publishers, was criticized for allowing Arabic book publishers to display Arabic versions of Holocaust denial books and other anti-Semitic texts. Kuentzel, an author and educator specializing in anti-Semitism and Islam, told JTA that this year the books were available in English. He found at one Iranian booth the Protocols, in an edition published by the Islamic Propaganda Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran; Ford's book, published by the Department of Translation and Publication, Islamic Culture and Relations Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and Tale of the 'Chosen People' and the Legend of 'Historical Right' by Mohammad Taqi Taqipour, who writes that a global Islamic movement will soon destroy Israel. The Protocols, the most famous of these books, outline a supposed Jewish plan for world domination German law prohibits the sale of some books, including the Protocols and Hitler's Mein Kampf, but organizers of the fair, which ended Sunday, told JTA they could take no action unless an official complaint was lodged. "I could not imagine it," said Kuentzel, author of the 2002 book Djihad und Judenhass, or "Jihad and Jew-hatred." He added, "It astonished me to see these books in an Iranian stand, in English." A spokesman for the book fair, Holger Ehling, told JTA about the procedure for complaints. If a visitor to the fair spots books that may be illegal, the police are called. Last year, they took no action when called about the books in Arabic, he said. "We will not enter into any arguments," Ehling said. "It is not our right to judge and we are not able to judge," adding, "I have things I feel very strongly about, but this cannot be the basis on which I am allowed to let books in or not." He said there are 380,000 titles on display at the fair and publishers are not required to submit lists to the fair organizers. Kuentzel said it is important that the issue be dealt with differently next year. "I think the German public should press the point: Either you can't invite a country that wants to destroy another country" to take part in the Frankfurt fair, "or you have tighter controls so that this does not happen again."