Bielefeld/Germany: 'Zionist' Holocaust survivor's lecture canceled

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT IN BERLIN
The left-wing Autonomous Youth Center (AJZ) located in the university city of Bielefeld in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has been accused of anti-Semitism for canceling a lecture last week by Karl Pfeifer, a prominent Austrian Jewish journalist and survivor of the Shoah. The 81-year-old Pfeifer was told two days before the scheduled lecture on "Hungary 2009: anti-Semitism, hate against Roma and Sinti, and neo-Nazism" that the AJZ pulled the plug on his talk because as a Palmah soldier he allegedly participated in the massacre of a Palestinian village. Speaking from Vienna, Pfeifer told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that "the unit was not involved in a crime. The point is not what I did or what I am doing, but what I am. When I was child, I heard the 'the Jew is guilty.'"
Yet a modernized version of anti-Semitism has appeared, according to Pfeifer, and now "the anti-Semites replaced the word Jew with Zionist."
According to the minutes of the November 17 meeting where Pfeifer's planned lecture was terminated, participants said, "He is a Zionist."
However, the minutes of the meeting state that even the AJZ "members conceded that they did know if the information is accurate" regarding Pfeifer and the Palmah.
In an e-mail to the Post , Theresia Julianow of the AJZ wrote that the "topic and the continued handling" of the Pfeifer matter will be discussed next week at a residents' meeting and a statement will be issued.
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