21.04.2005 Free Petrozavodsk from fascist graffiti

March, 31, Karelian regional department of Interregional youth social & charity organization "Youth Human Rights Group" (YHRG) carried out an action of painting out fascist graffiti in the Jewish cemetery of Petrozavodsk. This is not the first time our organization arranges an action of such kind.
Fascist graffiti are hardly to become a surprise to anybody in the city. The daub on the walls abounds throughout Petrozavodsk and people used to pass by taking no care as if they thought it was a necessary attribute of the city image. But it is only in the Jewish cemetery that these scribbles appear regularly. . The acts of vandalism, desecration of Jewish tombs have become a standard regular job for local nazis.
Eight activists of the Museum in memoriam of the victims of fascism in honor of M. Colbet found it impossible to put up with the shameful status quo & decided to paint out all this blasphemy, reproachable in any normal society. The Jewish community made a number of complaints to the justice but the criminal cases, no one guilty being found, were normally closed. And that's for that we have people in this city, who had survived the Holocaust! It is a horror to imagine what should they feel on seeing this.
It is obvious that it can't be fought with by police only. We need a social anti-fascist movement to create in people a resistance to national -socialist ideas, to work with the youth. These are the purposes of YHRG and a recently established Youth Anti-fascist Center.
We hope this action will be a lesson to all other citizens for it is an easy task to take a brush, go and paint out the ferocious writing, which taints the streets of our city.
Maxim Efimov,
Head of the Youth Anti-fascist Center, Chair of the Karelian regional department of Interregional youth social & charity organization "Youth Human Rights Group" (YHRG).