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| - A Holocaust survivor who was sharing his story in a Zoom videoconference had his testimony interrupted by anti-Semitic protesters who flashed Hitler images on the screen and shouted slogans after hacking into the talk, officials said Tuesday. The Holocaust Memorial conference took place on Monday and was organised by the Israeli embassy in Germany. Like many other events at the moment, it was held online to comply with social distancing measures over the coronavirus crisis. Tswi Herschel, a child survivor of the Holocaust, said the event had only just started when it was gatecrashed by anonymous protesters. They shouted "Palestine, Palestine" and showed "porno pictures, Hitler pictures, a Swastika... all sorts of things," Herschel told AFP by phone. "I didn't recognise exactly what they were saying but it sounded a bit erratic." Israeli ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff wrote on Twitter that the event -- which actually coincided with Hitler's birthday -- was halted but later resumed without the "anti-Israel activists". He condemned the display of anti-Semitism on the eve of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance day to honour the six million Jews murdered under Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. "To dishonour the memory of the #Holocaust and the dignity of the survivor is beyond shame and disgrace and shows the blatant antisemitic nature of the activists," he tweeted. The Israeli embassy said it was unclear who exactly the protesters were but the online event was open to all. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas accused the protesters of an "incredible lack of respect toward survivors and the memory of the deceased". "It's an indescribable disgrace," he tweeted. Child survivor Herschel, who frequently gives lectures about the Holocaust and discrimination, said he stayed "very calm" throughout the disruption. "In a way this is an example I can use," he said. "Discrimination is something you have to fight. They are such cowards, they don't show their faces... But it's just anti-Semitism and today's anti-Semitism is very, very high." Herschel was born in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands in 1942. His Jewish parents asked their non-Jewish Dutch friends to look after him and keep him safe while they themselves were killed at the Sobibor concentration camp. Herschel's grandmother, his only surviving relative, raised him after the war. He later moved to Israel with his wife and children and has told his story to young people around the world to combat anti-Jewish hatred. While it was Herschel's first time on Zoom, the video conferencing website has been no stranger to "zoombombing" ever since its popularity exploded as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. There have been repeated complaints of people crashing meetings uninvited, including incidents where participants were shown porn or subject to lewd comments. The company has vowed to improve security measures. mfp/hmn/cdw
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