AUSTRIA: Racism and fascism (4)
01 January 1991
AUSTRIA: Racism and fascism
artdoc November=1995
Four Romany killed in bomb attack
Four Romany - Josef Simon (40), Peter Sarkozi (27), Erwin Horvath
(19) and Karl Horvath (22) - died after a high-explosive booby-
trap bomb was placed next to a Gypsy settlement at Oberwart in
the eastern province of Burgenland, 75 miles south of Vienna.
A mock gravestone calling for Gypsies to go back to India had
been laid at an underpass leading to a Romany settlement on the
outskirts of Oberwart. When the four men tried to remove the
stone, they set off a huge explosion. The Bavarian Liberation
Army has claimed responsibility for the murders.
Romany leaders reacted angrily to initial police claims that the
four men had either blown themselves up in an accident or that
the killings were a result of a blood feud. The true story, that
the four men were part of a group which regularly patrolled the
neighbourhood and had set out one Saturday evening after a woman
had reported a suspicious car in the neighbourhood, only emerged
later after the police searched the Romany camp for weapons.
Oberwart, in the Burgenland region, bordering Hungary, is home
to those Austrian Gypsies who survived the decimation of the
Holocaust. At nearby Lackenbach, a concentration camp was set
up to hold Austrian Gypsies before they were sent to their deaths
at Auschwitz. Austria only recognised Gypsies as an ethnic
minority group a year ago (Guardian 7, 9.2.95, Independent
13.2.95, International Herald Tribune 22.2.95).
Reactions to the killings
Helmut Grebner, the coordinator of an all-night vigil at the
site where the men died, has criticised the police's failure to
protect the vigil, which was twice attacked by skinheads
attempting to destroy the lighting arrangements by trampling on
memorial candles. Another all-night vigil in memory of the
murdered men, at the site of the former Gestapo headquarters in
Vienna, was also attacked. Leading Austrian politicians,
including president Klestil, joined 2,000 mourners at the funeral
which was broadcast live on state TV. At a demonstration
attended by 2,500 people in
Vienna, leaders of Austria's six main ethnic minority communities
launched what they called the "Oberwart declaration", in which
they stated: "Fifty years after Auschwitz, members of the
Austrian ethnic minorities are again being, murdered, because
they are members of a different community."
The government has offered a reward of 3m schillings
(?180,000) for information leading to the arrest of the
perpetrators. Legislation to provide immunity to informants is
also promised (Romnews No 31, 14.2.95,Jewish Chronicle 17.2.95).
Far-Right Freedom party blames bombings on Communism
The Documentation Centre of the Austrian Resistance says that the
far-right Freedom party has promoted a political climate
conducive to right-wing violence. Jorg Haider has denied this
in an interview in the weekly magazine Profil, arguing instead
that the secret services from former Communist countries were
involved in the bombings. Later, Haider provoked a storm of
criticism by referring, in a debate in parliament on racially
motivated crimes, to the Nazi concentration camps as "punishment
camps". (Jewish Chronicle 17.2.95).
Further attacks
Less than a day after the killings in Oberwart, a parcel bomb,
hidden in a rubbish bin near a children's playground, exploded
in Stinatz, a small village 65 miles outside Vienna, inhabited
mostly by ethnic Croats, many of whom are refugees from the
former Yugoslavia. A refuse collector was seriously wounded in
the hand when he opened the bin and triggered the blast. "Go
back to Dalmatia", a Croatian region, read a pamphlet left at a
bus stop in the town.
The Bavarian Liberation Army also claimed responsibility for
this attack (Guardian 7.2.95, Independent 13.2.95, International
Herald Tribune 22.2.95).
Two men charged with bombing campa