Exploiting the Holocaust through images or slogans at anti-vaxxer protests would become a criminal act in Austria under proposed legal changes backed by the Jewish community.
Current law allows a protestor to wear a yellow Star of David embroidered with the word “ungeimpft” (“unvaccinated”), or compare vaccinations with Zyklon B.
At a rally last month in the city of Graz, demonstrators held up a banner echoing the gates at Auschwitz saying: “Impfen macht frei“ (“vaccination makes you free”).
Anti-vaxxer protests have become a weekly occurrence since the government announced its intention in November to introduce a vaccine mandate. Some have attracted as many as 40,000 people.
The rallies have the support of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), convicted neo-Nazi Gottfried Küssel and members of the identitarian movement.
Now calls are growing to amend the 1947 Prohibition Act which makes Nazi activity illegal. The act was amended in 1992 to outlaw Holocaust denial.
In a visit to Berlin in the lead-up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day last month, the president of the Austrian parliament, Wolfgang Sobotka, said the act could be amended to make chanting slogans such as “We are the new Jews” illegal. He urged: “Disparaging the victims of the Holocaust must be a criminal offence.”
Austria’s leading Jewish community body, the IKG (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien) has welcomed the idea.
IKG president Oskar Deutsch said: “In recent months, we’ve seen especially related to the pandemic a distinct rise in Holocaust relativisation and the spread of antisemitic conspiracy theories. This mockery of the victims of the Holocaust and of the survivors must stop.”
The Jewish community regularly issues warnings to avoid areas where anti-vaxxer protests are due to take place.
According to the community’s Reporting Centre for Antisemitism, in the first half of 2021 there was a rise in recorded antisemitic incidents.
Of 562 incidents, 244 were deemed to have had a right-wing “ideological background” compared with 100 left-wing and 71 Islamist incidents.
Austria’s anti-vaccine protests have brought antisemitism from the fringes “to the centre of Austria and the society”, Karoline Edtstadler, minister for Europe and the constitution, said at a recent news conference convened with IKG president Deutsch to discuss the implementation of Austria’s National Strategy Against Antisemitism.
