Dorset REC opposes hate speech and actions designed to stir up division, hatred and intimidation of people in need, seeking help and those going about their business. Trustees support the message below and sentiments expressed against those seeking to polarise our society.

🚩🚩‘NEVER AGAIN’ – NO NAZIS IN DORSET! 🚩🚩

Stand Up To Racism views with horror the appearance of racist graffiti at the home of Bournemouth Rabbi Bentzion Alperowitz. A swastika – symbol of the Nazi Party – was painted on the Rabbi’s house and on other nearby buildings. In another attack, a Jewish teenager was shot in the head with an air rifle: both the graffiti and this attack have been registered by police as “hate crimes”. Those responsible should be identified and bear the consequences.

These shameful assaults on the Jewish community come as the extreme right has become more prominent nationally and locally. In past weeks we have seen far right, racist demonstrations against hotels accommodating those seeking asylum. Nazi symbols and gestures have been in evidence. At the core of these events are known fascists – people with records of Holocaust Denial and virulent antisemitism.

Many “protestors” of the far right subscribe to a Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which claims a powerful “global elite”, usually identified as Jewish, is attempting to replace white people with migrants in order to undermine national identity. This ideology is what drives their attacks on migrants and refugees.

In Bournemouth and other towns, vigilante groups have been formed claiming to “protect” local communities. These are led by known organisers of anti-refugee protests. In recent years such groups have invaded mosques and attacked legal centres offering advice to migrants.

This chilling development recalls the appearance of street bullies in Germany in the 1930s, who went on to form the “Brown Shirts” and the Nazi “Assault Division.” In Britain vigilante groups of the 1930s formed the core of Oswald Moseley’s “Black Shirts”, who attacked Jewish communities.

The Nazis of the 1930s in Germany began by targeting Jews, attacking synagogues, Jewish homes and businesses. This culminated in the Holocaust, in which six million Jews – two-thirds of European Jewry – perished alongside disabled people, Roma and Sinti, LGBTQ people, and political opponents of the Nazi regime.

Stand Up To Racism unequivocally condemns those responsible for the attacks on the Jewish community in Bournemouth.

We oppose the vigilantes, racist bullies and others that threaten our towns. We stand with the Jewish community and with Muslims targeted by the far right and its politics of hate. We will not let the racists divide us: we celebrate the diversity of our communities here in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and more widely across Dorset.

We say: “Never Again”.

PETER LYNN, Co-Convenor, Stand Up To Racism Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole; CANDY UDWIN, Secretary, Stand Up to Racism Dorset