Sittingbourne War Graves vandalised

[Slipdigit]

Ron,

I can certainly appreciate your disgust and understand your contempt, both are well placed.

Were the graves adequately cleaned and were the perps apprehended? I am certainly hoping so on both parts.

[marcus69x]

<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on" width="100%"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">Makes you wonder what these people were thinking when they vandalised these memorials. Fair enough if they wanna go and graffiti back alley walls or something, but they knew what they were vandalising. Dont they realise that they probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the people who's graves they were abusing.

Sickening.
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[marcus69x]

Just thought I'd add that the newspaper photo with Ron on it. Swastikas? Now that surely is taking the p#ss. Not as if they wrote "Rooney was here '97" or something just as stupid, but that is saying something. Not just mindless youth graffiti but something more sinister. Hang 'em up in the town centre and let us all prod them with sticks and red hot pokers.

[von Poop]

Originally Posted by marcus69x

Makes you wonder what these people were thinking

Probably safe to say that they weren't/don't.

[Ron Goldstein]

Jeff, Marcus & Adam
Sorry if I the Sittingbourne incident caught me on the raw but I know you will appreciate how I feel about the bxxxxxxxds who go in for this sort of thing.
I think it was Wendell Phillips who said "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" and I have always made a point of not letting these utterly mindless characters go un-noticed.
In answer to Jeff's query, the stones were soon cleaned up, the ones that were smashed into pieces took a while longer !

[Slipdigit]

Dang, I didn't realize some were broken. I would think that it would take longer.

[stevew]

Just looking at Ron's first post here, yes that sickens me a great deal too. I think we are all to quick to blame the youth of today, and I am probably guilty myself, but a look round at some of the official politcal party websites (I don't mean the main stream parties here and I'm not going to mention any names as these vermin don't deserve to have their names in the lights) and there are some very evil and twisted individuals about, they are quick to want to remember the dead of the two World Wars (with their unoffical walkpasts of the cenotaph), but just as quick to deny the holocaust. I personally think most of them know what they are doing, these people don't deserve a place in our society. The authorities should make us more aware of these people and their twisted antics. They make the most well known extreme right wing party seem very liberal indeed

[Ron Goldstein]

Since I last posted on this thread there have been further developments that I would like to bring to the site's attention.

Last weekend the Jewish Cemetery at Plashet, East London was again attacked by vandals and between 30 and 40 gravestones pushed over. Some stones were smashed and decorative figures were removed from other graves. Several tombs were smashed in and a small fire was lit against one wall.

On reading this, the name Plashet rang a bell with me and so I went to my records and found that it was Plashet cemetery that had been vandalised in September 2003 when an eight strong group of mindless thugs smashed no fewer than 385 gravestones.

This, according to the London Evening Standard of 12/09/03:

Two 16 year old youths later appeared at Stratford Youth Court and were told by the Magistrate, Jeanette Richardson "to put the incident behind them" and that "it was a very irresponsible thing that you did".
The defence counsel, Elizabeth Neil denied the attacks were antisemitic and said "this is a nasty and un-pleasant offence, but it was not racially agravated".

The pair, who cannot be named were at the time both full-time college students walked free from the court after receiving just six month's community service.

One wonders whether the East London Magistrate has read of this current act of desecration and whether or not she feels in any way responsible for this current event, considering that in 2003 she was accused by a local Jewish Rabbi of having passed a sentence that was just a "slap on the wrist" ?

A very disgusted

Ron

[Gerard]

I completely agree with you Ron, A despicable and shameful act.

[Ron Goldstein]

I realise that this particular report is out of date (it describes events of 2004) but I thought it worthy of inclusion in this thread which discusses mindless vandalism.

In the Sunday Times Culture Magazine this week, was a review of a book by Anthony Julius entitled "Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England"

To illustrate the review there was this a picture of a defaced headstone of a Jewish soldier.

I did some research and found him in "We will remember them", the official list of Jewish servicemen who died in WW2. Lt. Solomon was killed in an accident in the UK and was therefore buried in Aldershot.