Protests over use of pro-Nazi symbols at rally

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre today said it has lodged a formal complaint with Austrian authorities over what it termed their “utter failure” to prevent the use of Nazi-era symbols during a weekend gathering of Croatian nationalists.

Efraim Zuroff, the group’s Israel director, said the centre filed a protest with Austria’s embassy in Jerusalem alleging that officials failed to stop the display of symbols at a rally on Sunday in the southern town of Bleiburg to remember victims of the post-Second World War killings there.

Some hard-liners showed up wearing uniforms of the Ustasha, a pro-Nazi group that killed tens of thousands of Serbs during the Second World War.

A few also reportedly waved photographs of Croatian pro-Nazi dictator Ante Pavelic.

“The fascist demonstrators at Bleiburg made a mockery of Austria’s ban on the use of Nazi symbols and its law against Holocaust denial,” Zuroff said in a statement.

Croatian local media said President Stipe Mesic “expressed wonder” as to why Austrian police did not act against the pro-Nazi extremists, in a letter to the Austrian ambassador in Zagreb.