Oct 3, 2007 8:13 pm US/Eastern
'Hitler's Dance Mix' Album Left On Yonkers Lawns
Compact Disc Just The Latest In Serious String Of Anti-Semitic Incidents
YONKERS (CBS) ―
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German Dictator Adolf Hitler was born Adolf Schickelgruber Hiedler in Austria (file).
AP
With cases of anti-Semitism on the rise in the city and surrounding areas, perhaps the most shocking incident expressing hatred toward Jews comes from a compact disc left on several Yonkers lawns.
The album case shows a picture of Adolf Hitler on the outside, while containing a CD on the inside filled with songs praising the murderous madman.
Track 17, called "Hitler's Dance Mix," combines dance music with speeches delivered by the Nazi dictator.
On the back of the album case is a vile anti-Semitic cartoon, and the Web site address and phone number for a Nebraska-based neo-Nazi group.
"Obviously they are very troubled people," says Lydia Friedman, a Yonkers resident who lives in the Winchester condo complex where several of the CDs were found lying on the lawn.
"I would like to think it's a kid who thinks it's a joke, but looking at the way it's printed up, I don't know about that," she says.
State Assemblyman Mike Spano (D-Yonkers) found one of the CDs on his property in the north end of the city.
"Most people when they see this type of thing, they throw it in the garbage, and that's where it belongs," Spano says.
The discs are just the latest in a long string of incidents of racist and anti-Semitic material left on lawns in white-picket-fence suburbia. In fact, this week police on Long Island are investigating a string of photocopied stories with with the word "swastika" highlighted on them being placed in mailboxes across Nassau County.
Less than two weeks ago, a Brooklyn synagogue along with several cars and homes nearby were vandalized with spray painted swastikas and anti-Semitic fliers.
And last week a New Jersey cornfield was discovered to have a gigantic swastika-shape cut in the middle of it.
Joel Levy, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, says the incidents are all part of a recruiting effort. Levy says September and October are prime months for the distribution of hate material because of the Jewish holidays.
Last weekend, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, was observed just a week after Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, was celebrated. Wednesday night marked the beginning of Shemini Atzeret while Thursday night was the beginning of Simchat Torah.
Yonkers police are investigating, but say distributing the material is probably not a crime. The First Amendment protects expression of all kinds.
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