SAY NO TO HAIDER

The inclusion of an extreme-right party in the new coalition government in Austria is anathema to anyone who believes in tolerance. We cannot remain silent.

Acutely sensitized to the havoc and destruction wreaked by fascism and nazism, the Jewish world must take a firm stance and a leading role in reminding the world of Austria's racist past. Nearly a third of the pre-war Austrian Jewish community was killed in the Holocaust, while in the Mauthausen slave labor and concentration camp, built in Austria, 119,000 people died from slave labor, sickness, starvation and gassing.

We must not let the new government in Austria forget for a moment that its make up is abhorrent to anybody who believes in democracy and wants to ensure that Nazism and its credo of racial supremacy can never again rear its ugly head.

We must ensure that governments and people worldwide express their complete and unanimous condemnation of the Austrian government's willingness to include in its ranks a party whose platform is based on racial hatred and xenophobia.

We must be wary of condemning the entire Austrian people for the opinions of the Freedom Party and Joerg Haider's racist stance. And yet we must remember that nearly one third of the Austrian electorate voted for Haider and his party, while nearly another third supported the People's Party, which has formed a coalition with the extreme right and brought into power a party whose platform is based on racial hatred and xenophobia.

Thus we must support and encourage those forces in Austria which have unequivocally condemned the beliefs of the Freedom Party, criticized the make-up of the new government, and demonstrated against its establishment.

Our voices are not enough. We must also act, as the Jewish people and as part of the democratic world.

The World Zionist Organization has resolved to take a leading role in the worldwide campaign against the new Austrian government.

We are calling on Israelis and Jews worldwide, as well as people of conscience everywhere, not to vacation in Austria and to cut all contacts with the new government in Vienna.

We have urged Jewish organizations worldwide to work together and to lobby their respective governments against the new Austrian government.

We have canceled all WZO activities in Austria, including a conference of Bnai Akiva that was due to be held in Vienna but will now take place elsewhere.

We are examining the possibility of sending youth groups from Israel and the Jewish world to visit the Mauthausen concentration camp. If Austria of today has placed itself beyond the pale, it is all the more imperative to remind the world of Austria of yesterday.

Our Education Department is preparing special material on neo-Nazism for use in Jewish schools throughout the world and developing suggestions for suitable activities in youth movements.

We are working with Zionist youth movements worldwide and encouraging them to discuss the new Austrian coalition in their educational activities and to organize protests against the government. We are turning to all youth movements to do the same.

We are urging women's organizations worldwide to take suitable action. We have opened this special Internet site to raise public awareness. Here you will find background information on:

Fascism in Austria – from the birthplace of Hitler through the election of Kurt Waldheim as president to the rise of the Freedom Party.

Joerg Haider and the Freedom Party, including quotes that clearly demonstrate his beliefs.

The results of the general elections in Austria last October, the creation of the government in February of this year and the reactions of Austrians.

Similar political parties in other countries in Europe.

Suggestions for protest actions that you might take.

If once we swore "Never Again," we must today shout out loud and clear that we are witnessing "Austria Again," and we must raise our voices and follow them with actions. We will not be silent.

SAY NO TO HAIDER