Hanna Veiler, a student at Heidelberg University and former president of the German Union of Jewish Students, received a four-page antisemitic, sexist letter, which included death threats.
By Rachel Avraham
A former German Jewish student leader was sent a four-page letter containing Holocaust mockery, sexually explicit antisemitic abuse and Nazi slogans – including a note inviting her to “Auschwitz to have a party for happy Holocaust” and signed “Heil Hitler”, Jewish News reported. According to the report, Hanna Veiler, 27, a social work student at Heidelberg University and former president of the German Union of Jewish Students (JSUD), said she opened the letter earlier this week after checking the organization’s Berlin mailbox.
“I arrived and I started opening mail – everything looked normal,” she told Jewish News. “And one of the letters was a four-page letter, including a death note… There’s an English one, and then there’s another one in German saying, ‘Why did the Jews love to go to Auschwitz? Because the trip was for free.’”
According to the report, the messages also included a printed image comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, alongside the lines: “Oh Hanna, you are very sweet judensau… Let’s go to Auschwitz and have a party for happy holocaust… I want to **** ya three nights long for happy Holocaust.”
The term “Judensau” denotes a provocatively repulsive image involving Jews and a female pig, the Jerusalem Post noted. According to the report, the letter consisted of four pages of a mostly incoherent diatribe about “propaganda” schemes by “cunning Jew,” with multiple other antisemitic dog whistles such as “charming swindlers.”
“International financial Jews like [Heinz] Berggruen pride themselves on paying no taxes anywhere while conducting million-dollar deals across the globe,” it read at one point, the Jerusalem Post noted. “That’s how our Jews are, as they’ve always been: Deceitful, greedy, and in every sense antisocial, like vile parasites,” the letter read, the Jerusalem Post added.
According to Veiler, this isn’t the first time she’s received threats, Yedioth Achronot reported: “About a year ago, I received a letter – three pages – and the person described how they wanted to send me through the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Emails, comments on social media – this has become a part of our reality. Not just for me, but for everyone who’s publicly Jewish, who works for a Jewish organization.”
After some hesitation, she decided to publish excerpts from the letter on her Instagram account, where they went viral, Yedioth Achronot added: “I don’t want people to think of me as the victim. I don’t want to be someone that people are sorry for… I don’t want the people who believe in this kind of ideology to think they have an effect on me. Because they don’t have the effect they want.”
According to Yedioth Achronot, Veiler warned that antisemitism in Germany has surged since Hamas’s October 7 massacre: “The evidence is very clear. Everyone’s reality has completely changed.” According to the report, she placed partial blame on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is currently polling at nearly 30%. “This is new for Germany,” she said. “It’s the first time since the Holocaust that the far right has actually had a chance of becoming the next government. And coming from a country like Germany, this is scary.”
Previously, Veiler had told the Anti-Defamation League: “The situation for Jewish students in Germany is very critical. We hear from a lot of students who don’t go to university since October 7th, who just avoid campuses, just avoid university chats, who build groups to not be alone on campus. A lot of people started hiding their Magen David’s, not tell anyone that they are Jewish and so on. We get a lot of solidarity from politicians, we get a lot of solidarity from people that are politically active, but the broader society is either not interested in the Jewish reality or is on the pro-Palestinian side. So there is a huge gap between the political field and civic society.”
She concluded: “In addition, what makes the situation in Germany so special is that the majority of Jewish students in Germany are post-Soviet. A lot of us are experienced with saving our family members from war zones because most of us have a biographical or family connection to the Ukraine. So, this makes the situation in Germany really special and especially tough for Jewish students in Berlin and elsewhere.”
Photo from Anti-Defamation League: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wApZ9msjxek
