Far-right fears on Holocaust anniversary
OSKAR DEUTSCH, the head of Austria’s Jewish community, sharply criticised the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) at official Holocaust commemorations on Sunday.
He said at an event to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp that members of greater German nationalist fraternities were “the successors to the precursors of the Nazis — and their political arm is the FPÖ.”
“If we do not protest against them, here and now then what have we learnt from history?” asked Mr Deutsch, who is the president of the Vienna Jewish Community.
Not to speak out would be “to dishonour the dead”, he added.
Members of Austria’s ruling People’s Party including parliament speaker Wolfgang Sobotka attended the Jewish community’s event, but an invitation was pointedly not extended to the FPÖ — their coalition partner.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and President Alexander Van der Bellen attended commemorations at the former concentration camp, where at least 90,000 people died during the Second World War.
Willi Mernyi, the chair of the Mauthausen Committee, said the presence of FPÖ ministers would have been another “humiliation” for Holocaust survivors.
Mr Deutsch said the Jewish community could not in good conscience invite the FPÖ and provide the far-right with “a stage for a masquerade, simply because they are seeking validation.”
While FPÖ leader and Austria’s vicechancellor Heinz-Christian Strache had “distanced himself” from antisemitism, he said, words were not enough.
There have been 23 antisemitic or neoNazi incidents within the party’s ranks since it joined Austria’s government last December.
Austrian ministers were pointedly not invited
Mauthausen visitors on Sunday (above) and Johann Gudenus