Police in the eastern German state of Brandenburg are dealing with two recent anti-Semitic incidents: twelve headstones were toppled in the Jewish section of a cemetery in the city of Cottbus over the weekend, and two letters with anti-Semitic threats were received by the Jewish community and a local newspaper in nearby Frankfurt, on the border with Poland. A police spokesman said the perpetrators were unknown.
Cottbus mayor Frank Szymanski condemned the cemetery desecration. "An attack against the Jewish community here is an attack against all Cottbus citizens," he said. The local community was refounded in 1998 and today comprises 350 members, all of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
The two anti-Semitic letters in Frankfurt follow the burglary, in mid-July, of the Jewish community's offices. A police spokesman said similar letters had been received in other parts of Brandenburg.
