Jewish students prevent Austrian far-right speaker laying Kristallnacht wreath

By Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) – Jewish students in Vienna on Friday prevented the first far-right speaker of Austria’s lower house of parliament from laying a wreath in remembrance of the Nazis’ 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, arguing he was abusing the memory of its victims.

After the eurosceptic, Russia-friendly Freedom Party (FPO) won the most seats in a parliamentary election for the first time in its history in September, the new lower house elected FPO nominee Walter Rosenkranz as its speaker two weeks ago.

Those who opposed him in parliament and the leader of the body formally representing Austria’s Jews said he was not a suitable candidate because of his continued membership of a far-right fraternity and his past praise for a Nazi prosecutor, which Rosenkranz has since said was a mistake.

Protesters including members of the Austrian Union of Jewish Students held hands to form a cordon around a Holocaust memorial in the historic centre of Vienna where Rosenkranz had been due to lay a wreath in his official capacity. They held a banner that read: “The word of those who honour Nazis is worthless”.

In a tense standoff, a protester told Rosenkranz: “We do not want you to spit in our ancestors’ faces”, to which Rosenkranz replied: “You are insulting me” as his police escort looked on.

After initially asking the protesters to make way, Rosenkranz said: “I will yield to your violence. You are forcibly preventing me from approaching.”

Since the Jewish Religious Community (IKG), the body that formally represents Austria’s Jews, has long refused to hold meetings with FPO officials, Rosenkranz did not attend a separate Kristallnacht ceremony around the same time at another Holocaust memorial.

Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass, known in Austria as the November Pogroms, was a coordinated wave of intense violence against Jews across the Nazi Third Reich. Vienna was a major centre of that violence, with dozens of synagogues and prayer houses destroyed and thousands of Jewish shops looted.

It began on Nov. 9, 1938, roughly eight months after Nazi Germany annexed Austria.

Friday’s protest took place as the party that came second in September’s election, the conservative People’s Party, is holding coalition talks with the third-placed Social Democrats with a view to forming a three-party government excluding the FPO, which has branded that plan a “coalition of losers”.

The FPO was founded in the 1950s under a leader who had been a senior SS officer and Nazi lawmaker.