The anti-Semitic flyer from school days, for which the brother of Bavaria’s Deputy Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger took responsibility as author, is archived as part of a student work in the Dachau concentration camp memorial site. This was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the memorial on Tuesday evening. The “world” had first reported about it.
The newspaper found out that the leaflet in the student work “Last Homeland Steinrain? On the history of the Jewish cemetery near Mallersdorf-Pfaffenberg” by Roman Serlitzky.
The work was therefore written in the school year 1988/89 and won second prize in the “German History” school competition by Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker. Since then it has been in the Dachau concentration camp memorial, writes the “Welt”.
The spokeswoman for the memorial explained that the leaflet was in the student work reprinted without naming an author. “The flyer is not available as a single copy, but only as part of the student work.”
Author of the student work showed “negative example”
According to “Welt”, the author of the work compares the leaflet to a leaflet from the “Schülermitresponsibilities” (SMV) of the Burkhart-Gymnasium, in which they had called for a vigil at the Jewish cemetery in 1985.
He wrote: “As a negative example of how other young people of the same age are dealing with the Third Reich, do not hide a leaflet that circulated in school toilets and was collected in good time by the school management.”
The leaflet confirms one “subliminal always present anti-Semitic trend”, it goes on to say. “Where such non-spirit (sic!) stirs, no Jew has a chance of finding a home. The brown swamp is still there.”
Flyer from the school “deliberately kept small”
Roman Serlitzky told Welt that he had received a copy of the leaflet from his teacher. “I hadn’t heard about the leaflet before at school. I didn’t know anything about the authors.”
The pamphlet was “deliberately kept small” by the school, his teacher said. “The school had partnerships with French and Polish schools. You didn’t want to attract a lot of attention so as not to jeopardize the partnerships.”
Bavaria’s Economics Minister and head of the Free Voters, Aiwanger, came under pressure over the weekend because of the leaflet. Aiwanger had on Saturday night rejected in writingfor writing an anti-Semitic leaflet in the 1980s that was reported in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
At the same time, however, he admitted that “one or a few copies” were found in his school bag. Shortly thereafter Aiwanger’s older brother admitted to having written the pamphlet. He later said he believed his brother Hubert wanted to collect the leaflets again. (dpa)