Lines: 77

Archive/File: fascism/germany ap.011294
Last-Modified: 1994/01/18

[Archival note: Canadian radio reports, on January 14, 1994, that this
story may have been concocted by the girl in question.  I have
received no additional news clippings either confirming or denying
this, but news sources certainly suggest she invented the story and
disfigured herself.  Later news releases state that the girl's
physicians felt that the wound appeared to be self-inflicted.  knm]


          SLASHING OF GIRL IN WHEELCHAIR AMONG DOZENS 
                   OF ATTACKS ON HANDICAPPED
 
                       By TERRENCE PETTY

BONN, jan 12 (AP) - The carving of a swastika on a wheelchair-bound
girl's face is only the latest of dozens of neo-Nazi attacks on
handicapped Germans in the last two years, a national advocacy group
said Wednesday.

The attack, which set off a nationwide manhunt, recalled the ugliness
with which the Nazis under Hitler beat and murdered the handicapped.

The 17-year-old high school student in Halle says three extremists
carved the swastika in her face Monday after she refused to repeat
fascist slogans they had shouted, including "Gas The Cripples."

Halle police have sent composite pictures to investigators across
Germany and are asking the populace for help in finding the culprits.

The advocacy group Help For Germany's Handicapped says 80 handicapped
people reported being attacked by extremists last year and the year
before.  One - a man who was nearly blind - is known to have died.

Friedel Rinn, chairman of the Duesseldorf-based organization, charged
that Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government is neglecting needy people
and that has encouraged neo-Nazis to target the weak and
disadvantaged.

"Those who isolate people through enacting bad social policies
shouldn't be surprised when cowards make victims out of the weak,"
Rinn said.

Kohl has been cutting some social benefits to help pay for the costs
of German reunification.  The government has not, however, touched
funds for the handicapped.

Ralf Berger, spokesman for the Halle police department, said
investigators have received more than 60 clues from the populace but
no leads have proved hard enough to make an arrest.

The attack has brought shame on Germans just as they were starting to
hope that neo-Nazis were on the run.

German courts and investigators have scored some big victories over
violent extremists in recent months.  The federal justice minister
says police must make a concerted drive this year to end neo-Nazi
violence, which has killed 30 people since 1990.

The 17-year-old Halle girl told police she was stopped by two male
skinheads and a teen-age girl just after leaving class to use the
toilet of a hospital near her school, which has no toilet for students
in wheelchairs.

The three assailants confronted the girl, identified by German news
media only as Elke, in a desolate lot behind the hospital.

They shouted "Gas The Cripples!" "Foreigners Out!" and "Heil Hitler!"
and demanded she repeat the hate slogans, police said.

When she refused, one of the men used a razor-sharp knife to cut a
swastika in her left cheek.  The girl screamed for help but no one
heard her.

Elke told the Berlin newspaper B.Z.  her attackers let her go after
saying: "We restrained ourselves this time.  It'll be a lot worse for
you at our next meeting." Elke returned to class with blood streaming
down her face, the newspaper said.

Article 4048 of alt.skinheads:
Newsgroups: alt.skinheads
Path: oneb!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!cyber2.cyberstore.ca!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!noc.near.net!news.cs.brandeis.edu!binah.cc.brandeis.edu!DEANE
From: deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane)
Subject: Re: Attack upon handicapped child by German skins
Message-ID: <1994Jan16.214945.21919@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
Sender: news@news.cs.brandeis.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
References: <1994Jan14.010252.16644@oneb.almanac.bc.ca> <2h7mp1$jb5@epas.utoronto.ca>,<2h8v17$4bg@savoy.cc.williams.edu>,<1994Jan15.214707.2484@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 21:49:45 GMT
Lines: 20

From this morning's _Boston Sunday Globe_:

"German Schoolgirl Returns After Tale" BERLIN - A handicapped schoolgirl
who disappeared after apparently making up a story about skinheads carving
a swastika on her cheek has surrendered to authorities, German police said
yesterday. A spokesman in Halle said the 17-year-old, who uses a wheelchair,
vanished Thursday after police launched a nationwide search for three 
skinheads she said had attacked her Monday. "We now know where the girl is,"
the spokesman said. "The girl is expected to be back in Halle tomorrow."
(Reuters)

None of the earlier newsreports I read ever mentioned that the girl had
disappeared. Most wire stories seem to cut out so much information that
they raise as many questions as they answer.

Journalism.  :-( 

David Matthew Deane                     Who would remember Helen's face
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu             Lacking the terrible halo of spears?
                                                          (Robinson Jeffers)

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