Auschwitz sign
Photo: Ophir Hacohen
Communist Party leader Fausto Bertinotti
Photo: AP
Italy: Holocaust cartoon stirs row
Anti-Semitic caricature published by Italian Communist Party shows separation fence with welcome sign paraphrasing Auschwitz's 'Work Liberates'
An anti-Semitic cartoon which appeared Friday in Liberazione, the journal of the Italian Communist Party, stirred a row among Italian Jews, the Israeli Embassy and parliament members.
The journal of the Rifondazione Comunista party, set to be part of the coalition that will form the Italian government, published an anti-Semitic caricature showing the separation fence with a gate bearing the sign "Hunger Liberates," similar to the welcome sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz extermination camp, which read "Work Liberates."
Yasha Reibman, spokesman of Milan's Jewish community, told Yedioth Ahronoth that the cartoon publication was a very severe act and demanded that the newspaper editor be dismissed immediately in a bid to prove that the stances presented by the journal do not represent the stances of the party it represents.
Israeli Ambassador to Rome Ehud Gol said in response that the anti-Semitic cartoon was shameful and humiliating and that he plans to respond to it harshly.
Parliament members from the democratic Left in Italy also slammed the cartoon.
However, Italian Lower Chamber Speaker Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Communist party, as well as other party members, did not apologize and failed to even respond to the cartoon publication.
Story first published by Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth
