Fear Grips Midwood Residents after Anti-Semitic Vandalism

Home Brooklyn Life Fear Grips Midwood Residents after Anti-Semitic Vandalism
City Investigations patrol stand outside the home of an arson victim in Midwood (Omar Akhtar / The Brooklyn Ink)

On Saturday morning, Chaim Weiser opened the newspapers and saw something he says shook him to his core.  It was something he had seen 70 years ago. Back then, it had marked the beginning of the Holocaust.

Arsonists had torched three cars and painted several park benches with red swastikas and the letters “KKK” in an act of anti-Semitic vandalism that took place in the early hours of Friday morning. The cars were parked on Ocean Parkway, between Avenues J and I, in a quiet, leafy neighborhood of Midwood, a predominantly Jewish area.

“I’m very shook up, it’s very, very close to me” said Weiser, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor who spent years in a concentration camp before being liberated in 1945. “I remember when I was a kid, I saw this kind of stuff and I used to say, ‘it’s just kids, just vandals, it’ll never become anything dangerous.’ Deep down, I hope it’s nothing but juvenile pranks. But you can’t help thinking history repeats itself.”

Weiser says his biggest fear is that the crime will be forgotten. “A few people came out yesterday to protest the incident, a couple of stories in the news, but then what? Nothing! People are going to forget about this incident until the next one, when it’s too late.”

Three days later, there are disturbing remnants of the incident.  There are uneven blotches on the park benches where the graffiti has been whitewashed.  One of the benches is missing a bottom and is wrapped in blue and white police tape. The road has telltale black burn marks and you can still smell the charred asphalt in the air.

Boruch Weiss and Mosag Klein are two students who stopped to look at the site. Klein described the incident as “very, very terrible.” Weiss took things a step further, echoing what Weiser had said. “I look at it as the start of the Holocaust” he said. “People say it can’t happen, but it did happen. People have to know that it happened. The NYPD needs to send a clear message.”

Weiss and Klein say the timing of the incident was especially alarming, since it took place the day after the anniversary of “Kristallnacht”, or “The Night of The Broken Glass”, when on the night of November 9 and 10, 1938 the Nazis committed a series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and some parts of Austria. The event is widely regarded as the precursor to the Holocaust.

Last week’s vandalism seems to have shattered the idyll of this quiet Brooklyn neighborhood. Television crews circle the area while reporters stop people walking by to ask them questions. But people are reluctant to talk. Outside one of the houses next to the scene stands a man in a blue jacket emblazoned with words “City Investigations” — a private security force hired by the community. He has strict instructions to keep all press and visitors away from the residents of the house who owned one of the cars that was torched on the street.

Emilia Ancona, 65, lives close by that house. She says she woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Friday when she heard loud noises and caught a whiff of what she thought smelled like “burning electricity.” She says she was shocked that such a violent incident could take place so close to where she lived. “Is this in my own backyard now?” she said. “Am I living in Israel?

“My daughter said to me ‘Mom, they could put a bomb in my car, and I’m driving with my children’ she said. “I’m very, very scared”

Her companion, Miriam Rhine, 68, added “Who’s going to protect us?”

Ancona says the community is taking some steps to protect itself. “We have a town hall meeting at our local synagogue tonight to discuss Friday’s incident.” City Investigations, she added, offered assurances in extra vigilance in the coming days. “But I would like to know, how come they didn’t notice something was going on that day?” she said. “They go up and down my block all the time, they didn’t see any guys or kids doing anything on this road? ”

City Investigations declined to comment on the incident.

A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said the incident is being characterized as a hate crime and is currently being investigated by the hate crimes unit.  He said that while there are no leads currently, he encourages the residents of the neighborhood to be on the look out for suspicious activities and report them immediately to the NYPD. The spokesperson said the police were not coordinating with City Investigations and denied knowledge of their activity. He added that NYPD details had been increased in the area to address the residents’ concerns.

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