From: baier@forwiss.uni-passau.de (Joern Baier)
Subject: fire attack against refugee home in P. (Re: Brandanschlag in Passau)
Organization: Multikulturelle Gesellschaft n.e.V.
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 12:06:08 GMT

In article <1992Oct11.020551.14015@cs.brown.edu> dzk@cs.brown.edu (Danny Keren) writes:
>[...]
>Did the original poster reffer to [Anja Rosmus], or possibly to the yearly
>gathering of an extreme right movement in Passau?
Neither to Anja Rosmus nor to the yearly meeting of the DVU (=Deutsche
Volksunion) but see my translation above.

>If anyone
>is interested to elaborate and/or continue the topic in English,
>I'll be grateful... I know this is showing some Chutzpa on my
>side, but untill I learn German...
Hope that Danny is interested though it is not about the topic he assumed.

For him and other non-german speekers a translation of my original article:

Last Sunday (Oct, 4th) a refugee home in Passau was attacked with a molotov
cocktail. Since I do not read the local newspaper (Passauer Neue Presse)
I heard of it on Friday only by chance and hence I do not know all the
circumstances. Apparently it had no serious consequences because the
janitor of the post office on the opposite side saw the attack and 
immedeatley called alarm. Unfortunately he could no recognize the number
plate of the offenders' car.

Seemingly only one of many attacks this autumn but I was deeply shocked
though I had no reason to assume that this could not happen in Passau.

Two articles in a local advertisement magazine (Passauer Woche) are worth
to mention in this context. In the first (Sep, 24th) the more than 80
year old owner of the house next to the attacked one assert that she has 
vermin in her house since the refugees lived next to her.
As a result of the reduction of the number of german soldiers the barracks
in Passau will be abandoned. There are plans to use the buildings as refugee
shelters. In the second article (Oct, 1st) the paper point out which negative
consequences the population would allegedly face if 500 asylums seekers come
to Passau.

The purpose of such articles is to raise the resentments against refugees.
Of course it is not the style of the journalists to throw molotow cocktails.
But this is not necessary as long as there are people who are willing to
act as executors. In my opinion the advertisement magazine is one of the
moral agitators of the attack.

For completeness reasons I had to report an attack against the shop
of an antiquities dealer who is one of the five representatives of the
right wing REP in the town council. Unknown offenders threw paving stones
in three of his display windows. It was not the first attack of this kind
though it might be a spontaneous act because there is a pile of paving
stones not far away.

I would name the offenders as "useful idiots" of the right since as a result
of such acts the demands for more state and more police will become louder
and might be heard finally by moderate politicians.

Concerned about the Germany of autumn 1992,
						Joern
-- 
* Joern Baier     (baier@forwiss.uni-passau.de) __o   *
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