12 August 2008

PARIS - T-shirts carrying an anti-Semitic slogan referring to a Nazi-era Jewish ghetto in Poland were seen on sale Tuesday in a multi-ethnic district of Paris.

France's anti-Semitism watchdog alerted AFP to the women's T-shirts, printed with phrases in German and Polish which translate as "Jews forbidden from entering the park", in a store in the Belleville neighbourhood.

The inscriptions - "Juden eintritt in die parkanlagen verboten" in German, and "Zydom wstep do parku wzbronionyio" in Polish - are reproduced from 1940 banners targeting the Jews of Lodz, in central Poland.

Ninety-five percent of the 200,000 Jews who were held in the ghetto later died in concentration camps.

An AFP reporter found five of the grey, sleeveless woollen tops - labelled with the brand "Introfancy IF" - on sale early Tuesday, but when he returned shortly afterwards they had been withdrawn.

The sales assistant said they had just been bought by a single customer.

She added that she did not know the meaning of the inscriptions.

Sammy Ghozlan, head of the National Bureau of Vigilence Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), said he had filed a formal complaint with the Paris police.

[AFP / Expatica]