Czech Republic: Nazi graffiti at primary school in Jihlava - again

Deník.cz reports that a right-wing extremist vandal struck again last weekend at the Jungmannova Primary School in the Czech town of Jihlava. Two Nazi swastikas and the inscription "Sieg Heil" have turned up on the wall of the school gym in the exact same spot that similar graffiti appeared a month ago.

"We discovered it Saturday morning. The graffiti was painted over with grey by noon. I immediately filed a criminal report with the police. This attack has accelerated our effort to install security cameras there as soon as possible. We already have cameras all over campus – obviously this is the only place they are missing," said school director Ivana Málková.

The director believes whoever vandalized the building during the early morning hours of Saturday 13 October is most probably behind the Nazi symbols and racist writing. "Whoever it is has betrayed himself by using the same handwriting twice. I don’t know what this person is after. We are doing our best to put the school building in order. We recently got rid of other graffiti tags, then there was the first attack with this stuff, and now this second one," she said.

The vandal evidently spray-painted the wall of the gym during the early morning hours of Saturday. The damage to the facade cost about CZK 3 000 to repair. "The case is being investigated by detectives as a suspected offense of showing sympathy for a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms and as a suspected offense of property damage. The perpetrator faces up to five years in prison if convicted," police spokesperson Jana Kroutilová of the Regional Police Directorate in Jihlava said.

Police are still investigating the first attack as well, which occurred during the election weekend in the early morning hours of Saturday 13 October. That vandalism featured graffiti reading "Gypsies to the gas chambers" and a Nazi swastika at the same spot.

"I am not able to say anything new about that matter. We will not say anything else about how that investigation is proceeding for tactical reasons," Kroutilová said.

Some are speculating that the reason the graffiti is turning up at this school in particular is because it is attended to a great extent by Romani children, but other locals don’t draw that connection. "I don’t know who that might bother, it’s a normal school like any other. We don’t know much about the graffiti. It seems to me more likely that location is just a convenient place to drink alcohol and smoke. Local teenagers hang out there. I guess they have a good time doing that sort of thing. They’re ordinary vandals," said a woman who lives near the school.

However, the graffiti found on the building of the Jungmannova Primary School is far from the only such vandalism in the town, which is the county seat. The Demlova housing estate in Jihlava could easily be renamed "Racist Street" because of the graffiti on the facades of several prefabricated apartment buildings there, reading "STOP RACISM AGAINST WHITES" or "STOP BLACK _" completed by a Nazi swastika. The cases are being reviewed by a specialist on extremism to discover whether a neo- Nazi gang is on the rampage in Jihlava or whether the graffiti is just a provocation.