Police investigating after Ogden home targeted by anti-Semitic graffiti three weeks straight

Calgary family targeted with anti-semitic graffiti A Calgary family was targeted 3 weeks in a row. Bill Macfarlane reports.

After the first incident left a Nazi symbol on his election lawn sign, Jordan Barrett thought it was just someone upset about his voting intentions.

That was May 20th - a week later on the 27th - it happened again. He called police who came to investigate.

Although the election is over, last weekend it happened for a third time.

"Literally on our fence - just this past Saturday night, we found it Sunday morning," Barrett says.

The repeated use of Nazi imagery and a slogan made him fear the messages were about more than just an ignorant expression of political disapproval.

"I'm certainly not taking it lightly, three weeks in row on our property specifically," Barrett says. "We do feel threatened, we don't feel safe in our own home right now."

HATE-RELATED

Last year CPS investigated 371 possible hate crimes - 106 were deemed hate motivated - a further 140 hate-related.

Marvin Rotrand is the national director of the League for Human Rights with B'nai Brith. He says the use of these old symbols of hate are meant to install fear.

"Last year in Alberta there were 19 cases of vandalism against synagogues, Jewish institutional buildings, swastikas, broken windows, that sort of thing," Rotrand says. "Not acceptable."

"Society in general has to understand that this targets not only the family, but the broader community, the Jewish community. In fact, these aren't the values that Albertans hold dear."

Barrett says despite his own personal concerns, he's also upset by the impact the images have on the broader community.

"Even just kids walking down the street if they see that kind of thing, they're being exposed to a side of the world we thought was done a long time ago," says Barrett.

Even decades after the end of the Holocaust, there is an alarming ignorance of its extent and its horrors.

"All our studies show that most anti-Semitic incidents in our schools happen in middle school, and it's all for a complete lack of understanding of how hurtful this type of stuff is." Rotrand says. "Kids graduate these days, with no knowledge of the Holocaust."

While the Holocaust era began when the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, the concentrated mass murder of six million European Jews mostly took place between 1941 and 1945.

Some were worked or starved to death, many others were executed in purpose-built death camps. Entire families were put to death, their only "offence" was being Jewish.