Seven days after I sent this letter, I received a very kind e-mail from Beate Stauer, a woman who works for the city of Bochum, Germany. She said she forwarded my correspondence to the office of the “Head of the competent county court” (her English wasn’t perfect, so this might be a bad translation). After writing briefly that she did not have all the details about the student who was allegedly fined for waving an Israeli flag, she wrote the following (again, please excuse the imperfect English syntax):
“By the way I´d like to inform you, that the municipality of Bochum campaigns for a peacefully life of different cultures, religions and people. One result of this campaign was the building of a new synagogue, which has been inaugurated in Dec ´2007. It was financed by the City of Bochum, the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, the both important Christian denominations and a lot of private sponsors of all religions.”
Ms. Stauer also spoke about a recent broadly supported demonstration against Nazism. I wrote her back saying thanking her for her e-mail and that “I am glad to see that this unfortunate event is not indicative of the values of Bochum and its people. I will take the liberty to write Ms. Neumann with my concerns as well.”
Letters From a Concerned Citizen 
October 20, 2009 at 8:43 am |
[…] Flag Fine By GHcool Faithful readers of this blog will know that I have been in contact with officials from the municiality of Bochum, Germany where a student was described by the Jerusalem Post as […]