6 neo-Nazis given suspended sentences
BUDAPEST (JTA) — Six neo-Nazis were given two-year suspended sentences by a Budapest court after they clashed with Hungarian police earlier this month. Another was given probation, and an eighth member of the group was set free for lack of evidence.
Hungarian Jewish leaders criticized the sentences as too mild and called for stricter laws to prevent neo-Nazi gatherings.
In related news, hundreds of neo-Nazis fought Hungarian police last weekend in clashes that left eight officers injured and more than 30 extremists arrested. The angry public reaction to the demonstrations prompted the Interior Ministry to call for a revision of the law that permits such events.
Britain orders investigation of art
LONDON (JTA) — The British government ordered all public galleries and museums in the country to investigate the origin of all paintings they have acquired since the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. The move was welcomed by Lord Janner, the head of the London-based Holocaust Educational Trust, who said it would serve as an “example to museums around the world.”
The director of the National Gallery in London, Neil MacGregor, said there are questions over the origin of 120 of its paintings, which include priceless works by Velazquez, Van Dyck, Degas, Renoir and Picasso.
Zurich remembers medieval pogrom
BERN (JTA) — Zurich officials unveiled a plaque to commemorate the approximately 150 Jews who were killed there 650 years ago.
“The flourishing Jewish community of medieval Zurich was brutally extinguished” in that pogrom, a city official said at the ceremony. Community members were burned, beaten and murdered after being blamed for a plague, known as the Black Death, sweeping across Europe. Only a handful escaped.