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A group of pro-Palestinian activists in Germany disrupted an online Holocaust memorial by posting Nazi imagery and pornographic content during a conversation with the survivors of the genocide.
Israel on Tuesday marked the Holocaust Memorial Day in honor of the six million Jews killed by the Nazi regime in World War II. Due to the coronavirus epidemic, the memorial events have been scaled down and took place mostly online.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions activists on Monday evening anonymously logged onto a Zoom chat hosted by the Israeli Embassy in Berlin on the eve of the Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The embassy hosted an online "living room memorial" with a Holocaust survivor Tzvi Herschel, who was set to tell his story of survival to the virtual audience.
The event, however, had been disrupted from the start after several BDS activists began spamming the Zoom stream with images of Hitler, pornographic content and anti-Israeli as well as anti-Semitic slogans.
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Family member of Holocaust survivor Sonia Perminger (on display), granddaughter Shani Maliniak lights memorial candles in her balcony of her apartment on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day
(Photo: EPA)
Following a long delay, the organizers managed to restart the event that continued without additional incidents. The embassy said they've filed a complaint with the local authorities.
"Unfortunately, even today, and even on Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany, these shocking incidents of anti-Semitism still occur,” said Foreign Minister Israel Katz. “It is our duty, as representatives of the Israeli political world, to fight anti-Semitism wherever it raises its head. "