The Times - UK (2020-07-28)

the times | Tuesday July 28 2020 2GM 19

News

A Holocaust survivor whose brother

was murdered by the Nazis and who

saw a teenage friend being hanged said

he cannot forgive a former SS guard

convicted of complicity in thousands of

deaths at the camp where their paths

crossed.

Manfred Goldberg, 90, of north

London, said that Bruno Dey’s two-

year suspended sentence as an accesso-

ry to 5,232 murders was insulting. He re-

vealed details of SS brutality at Stutthof

concentration camp, where both men

arrived as teenagers in August 1944.

Reacting to the conviction of Dey, 93,

in a Hamburg court, he told The Times:

“I am not vengeful. On the other hand,

after my experiences, spending three

and a half years in camps, I cannot

bring myself to forgive. It may seem

cruel, almost inhuman, to subject him

nitely. Since the stuff with George

Floyd everyone seems to have got

behind it. The Premier League, the FA,

clubs, they have backed us. At the

moment, the one corporation who is

not helping us is the social media.

That’s the biggest corporation there is,

the biggest platform for abuse at the

minute... That’s the biggest thing we

need to look at, that every account

every person needs to be held account-

able for their actions on social media.”

He said that some players avoided

social media for up to a week if they felt

they had had a bad game to preserve

their mental health. Townsend was

speaking after the Duke of Cambridge

backed a pledge by UK football leagues

and authorities to create a “mentally

healthy culture” in the sport.

Footballer calls for ban on

anonymous online abuse

Kaya Burgess

Survivor wants jail for SS guard, 93

to this ordeal at his age. On the other

hand I’m a mere three years younger.

He was there aged 17, I was 14.”

He “wholeheartedly” agreed with

the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish

human rights organisation, that Dey’s

sentence was an insult to survivors.

Mr Goldberg, who was prisoner

46578 at the camp in German territory

in today’s Poland, does not know if he

saw Dey there. However, he remem-

bers close calls with guards manning

the watchtowers, a role the young SS

man performed. “All the SS seemed to

have absolute power over our lives —

Jewish lives were worthless,” he said.

This was clear from his experience.

His nine-year-old brother, Hermann,

had been taken by SS men from a

labour camp where they were previous-

ly held, and was never seen again. Mr

Goldberg said: “I can tell you that to this

day, when I close my eyes, I can still see

her [his mother] in front of me and hear

her wails, losing her baby.”

A teenage friend was one of eight in-

mates hanged in front of the whole

camp after food went missing from rail-

way wagons near a work site. At one

point Mr Goldberg was a guard’s “per-

sonal slave and valet”. He said: “Had I

displeased him, there was not the

slightest reason why he could not pull

out his pistol and just dispatch me.”

He recalls SS guards in camp fact-

ories dragging out and shooting those

unable to work: “So these guards claim-

ing that they actually didn’t kill any Jew

personally are playing with words.”

After their liberation Mr Goldberg

and his mother came to Britain and

were reunited with his father, who had

fled Germany days before the war.

Dey apologised for the suffering but

claimed in court that he was unaware of

the “extent of the atrocities”.

Mark Bridge History Correspondent

Social networks give racists the biggest

platforms for hurling abuse at foot-

ballers, according to Andros Townsend,

the Premier League player.

The Crystal Palace winger, 29, who

has won 13 caps for England, said that

“we seem to have gone backwards in

football” in the fight against racism. He

said players were finally getting backing

from clubs and the authorities but there

was no help from social media giants.

Townsend said that racists were able

to create anonymous accounts to abuse

players without being held accountable

by the social media sites.

Asked if black players felt supported

in their battle against such abuse, he

told Toda y on BBC Radio 4: “Yes, defi-

Britain’s chief rabbi accused Facebook

and Twitter of being complicit in

antisemitism after the rapper Wiley

tweeted that Jews were “cowards” and

“snakes”.

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis wrote to Jack

Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, and

Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded

Facebook and also owns Instagram,

after a series of tweets from Wiley in

which he asked: “Who runs the world?

Who runs the banks?”

Twitter and Facebook blocked

Wiley’s accounts for seven days.

Rabbi Mirvis, 64, said that social

A

podcast host

was recorded

making

homophobic

and

antisemitic remarks

after an interview he

conducted with the

singer Will Young (Ben

Ellery and Henry Dyer

write).

Paul Blanchard, who

interviews industry

figures for his Media

Masters podcast, said

that he disliked “gay

people and Jews” while

talking about the

episode. Last month The

Times reported claims

that Blanchard, who

runs a PR firm, had

wasted tens of thousands

of pounds of a charity’s

money. He denies the

claims.

After the interview

with Young, who is gay

and won TV’s Pop Idol in

2002, Blanchard was

recorded discussing with

his former editor-in-

chief, Allie Dickinson,

how to describe the

episode on his website.

He is recorded saying:

“From Pop Idol to

podcaster and 25 years

of hot arse in-between.”

Mrs Dickinson said:

“That’ll go down well

with our American

audience.” Blanchard

said: “Absolutely...

Don’t like gay people.

Just gay people and

Jews.” Blanchard

claimed the recording

was written for him as a

joke by a gay Jewish

colleague.

Mrs Dickinson said

that she had written the

episode description and

Blanchard had

improvised. She said:

“I’m neither gay nor

Jewish and these were

his comments, not

written for him by

anyone else.”

This month a group of

former employees

published an open letter

on Twitter to guests on

Blanchard’s show,

including John

Humphrys. The 26

signatories asked for

Blanchard’s guests to

request the removal of

their episodes.

Last month The Times

revealed that Blanchard,

45, owed former staff

tens of thousands of

pounds in unpaid wages.

The Times can also

reveal that Blanchard

sent his staff a message

in which he referred to

Sky News as “Sky

Jews”. Blanchard said

that the Sky Jews

reference was a typing

error.

Of the recordings, he

said: “I have a team who

write my scripts and

they write inappropriate

things for me to read

when testing

microphone levels. The

person who wrote this

script is both gay and

Jewish, and wrote this as

a ‘dare’.

“I said it to

‘win’ the dare,

not to be

homophobic or

antisemitic. If you

hear the recording

you can clearly tell

I am being ironic,

and mocking

people who hold

these views. I don’t

hold these views

myself, and it is

ridiculous to

suggest I do.”

PR boss taped saying

he did not like Jews

Paul Blanchard’s social

media streams show

him with fast cars and

celebrities such as Brian

Cox, the scientist, below

‘w

n h a h y I a p t h m r s

Social media ‘complicit in antisemitism’

Kaya Burgess

Religious Affairs Correspondent

the boycott as he needed to share public

health messages, but said: “We have set

out very clearly that Twitter’s perform-

ance has not been good enough in

response to the antisemitic comments

made by Wiley.”

Wiley, whose real name is Richard

Cowie, 41, is known as the “godfather of

grime” and has half a million followers

on Twitter. He posted dozens of

updates on the site and on Instagram

containing antisemitic slurs and

conspiracy theories, mainly on Friday.

Some of his tweets were removed for

“violating Twitter rules” but he has not

been banned, despite posting messages

likening Jews to the Ku Klux Klan.

Rabbi Mirvis wrote: “For too long,

social media has been a safe space for

those who peddle hatred and prejudice.

This cannot be allowed to stand. Your

inaction amounts to complicity.”

Those supporting the boycott

include Labour and Tory MPs, Lord

Sugar; the comedian Shappi Khor-

sandi, the charity leader Sarah

Brown, wife of Gordon Brown, and

Lord Sacks, the former chief rabbi.

Wiley also took aim at other

groups, with one post claiming

that “Arabs have got Africa in a

headlock”. The Metropolitan

Police said that his posts were

being assessed. John Woolf, Wiley’s

manager, who is Jewish, cut all ties with

the rapper at the weekend and said that

he should “get help”.

Twitter said that it had designed

policies to “protect and serve the

public conversation” and added:

“Abuse and harassment has no

place on Twitter and we strongly

condemn it.”

A Facebook spokeswoman

said: “There is no place

for hate speech on

Instagram, includ-

ing attacks against

Jews.”

Leading article,

page 27

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis accused

social media bosses of inaction

media bosses were providing a safe

space for people who “peddle hate” and

their inaction amounted to complicity.

Boris Johnson piled more pressure

on the tech and publishing giants. No 10

issued a statement saying they must do

much better to tackle the sort of “ab-

horrent” messages posted by Wiley.

Rabbi Mirvis, the spiritual leader of

Britain’s Orthodox Jews, told the social

media bosses that they were guilty of a

“woeful lack of responsible leadership”.

He said he would join a 48-hour boycott

of the sites, and urged them to “take

swift action to challenge the hatred that

thrives on your platforms”.

The prime minister’s spokesman said

that Mr Johnson would not be joining