mad.hershNov 7, 2023

A few years ago I visited Berlin and, taking a walk, I came by a somewhat delapidated building when a rather inconspicuous plaque caught my eye. Somewhat cryptically, it referred to "young people" who had been murdered in a "criminal bombing attack" back in 1986.

Intrigued, I tried to find out more.

As it turns out, this was the site of a night club by the name of "La Belle". On the orders of Lybian dictator Muammar Al Khadhafi a bomb had been placed there, killing three visitors and injuring some 250 others.

In my view the memorial seemed not to do justice to the victims of this horrific attack. A mark for those "in the know" who would come specifically to look for it, but in no way reminding the public or educating passersby such as myself.

So I decided to contribute to the memory of these young people and I added the memorial to Google maps, along with a couple of photos and a short description.

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Imagine my surprise, when, last week, I received an email from Google, informing me that my review was no longer online. The reason being, that the memorial had been removed from Google maps.

How could this be?

I am, of course, acutely aware of all sorts of places being removed from Google maps in the past weeks since Hamas' gruesome attack on villages in southern Israel.

Jewish cemeteries, sites of defunct synagogues, memorials have been removed to obfuscate and to make it more difficult for anti-Semites to find and desecrate them. Equally, Jews all over Europe have been warned not to wear Kippot or fringes openly in the public.

So now not merely Jewish sites must be hidden, but also sites such as this one that had nothing to do with Jews? How come gentiles must hide nowadays, too?

The old saying comes to mind: first they come for the Jews, then for everyone else. Dear gentile friends, heed my warning: Stand up to the haters or you will be slaughtered "like Jews".

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Nov 7, 2023 at 9:52amWeb