Nazi flag flying from apartment window above Brisbane Synagogue sparks rebuke from leaders

A Nazi flag flying above a Brisbane synagogue has been condemned by the Lord Mayor and the nation’s leading civil rights group.

Australia’s leading civil rights organisation has joined Brisbane’s Lord Mayor in calling for a ban on Third Reich insignia after a Nazi flag was flown above a Brisbane synagogue.

The flag was seen flying from the window of the UniLodge apartment building next to the Brisbane Synagogue on Margaret St on Saturday morning.

Police arrived about 10.45am and removed the flag.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich, who has been leading a national campaign to ban the public displays and sale of Nazi materials and insignia, said: “This is a hate crime, pure and simple, a stomach-turning outrage that is a stain on our community.

“The flying of the Nazi flag in Brisbane near a synagogue is like plunging a knife in the heart of Holocaust survivors and spitting in the face of the brave Diggers who fought to defeat Hitler and his genocidal regime.

“It is also a desecration and denigration of the memory of the victims.

“Anyone who loves our country will not feel comfortable knowing that there are individuals in our midst who are brazenly and proudly exhibiting a symbol that represents the pure evil that led to the death squads, gas chambers and the extermination of six million Jews (including a million and a half children) and millions of others.”

Read the article by Jessica Marszalek and Nilsson Jones in The Courier Mail and The Advertiser.