Anne Frank

A German court gave five far-right supporters in eastern Germany nine-month suspended sentences on Thursday for ceremonially burning a copy of the diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank. The five men, aged between 24 and 29, were found guilty of incitement and desecration of the dead by a court in the eastern town of Schoenebeck. Two other defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence. The incident took place in February of last year during a summer solstice celebration in the eastern German village of Pretzien near Magdeburg. According to news reports, one of the men cast the diary into the flames and said: "I commit Anne Frank to the fire," borrowing words used by the Nazis in 1933. They also burned an American flag. Jewish groups in Germany have warned in recent weeks of an increase in anti-Semitic violence. On March 1, right-wingers threw a burning object through the window of a Jewish nursery school in Berlin and defaced the building with anti-Semitic graffiti, drawing condemnation from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, media reported. (03.08.07)