Summary

A group of masked men with Nazi flags protested outside a performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” in Howell, Michigan, shouting antisemitic slurs.

Audience members were reportedly frightened and needed escorts to their cars. The Fowlerville Community Theatre, which staged the play, described the protesters’ presence as a disturbing reminder of the fear faced by Holocaust victims.

The Anti-Defamation League condemned the display. The incident follows other recent displays of racism in the area.

  • enbee
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    9 days ago

    shame on CNN for calling them demonstrators. Human scum is more like it.

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    They had a flag! Why call them anything other than Nazis protesting outside Anne Frank theater performance? Corpo-fascist apologists.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Man,you’re talking like it’s 2016. Or even 2023.

      Buckle up for the next 4+ years. Holy shit.

    • b161
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      9 days ago

      Only people against the genocide of Palestinians and against Zionism get to be called Nazis and anti-semites.

      People waving actual Nazi flags are “free speech advocates” or “demonstrators”, and certainly not Nazis.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Hm, let me count the ways:

      1. It might hurt their feelings.
      2. Tone Police - let’s lower the temperature, everyone!
      3. bOtHsIdEs!
      4. The media has to be “objective” on such things.
  • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    We should start beating these people who seem to think Nazis are cool. Make it painful to be a bigot.

    • maplebar@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I just wish we could beat them at the fucking ballot box first. Right now it looks like the nazis are a majority in this fucked up shithole country of ours.

      • Netux@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Don’t fall for it. The majority are apolitical. If the dems had given anything to regular people the extra non voters that came out against trump in 2020 would have come out again. The failure of democrats to bring out voters doesn’t imply the non voters are Nazis. It implies the dems aren’t really that worried or they would have made concessions to the regular citizens instead of making sure “nothing will fundamentally change”.

        • maplebar@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          I’m afraid you’re the one who has fallen for it…

          There were plenty of reasons to vote for the Democratic candidate in 2024–climate change, affordable housing, healthcare, global stability, a continuation of what is actually a solid economy (especially when you look at markets, GDP growth, take home pay, employment numbers, and the latest inflation numbers).

          But, funny enough, that’s all irrelevant to anyone with half a brain.

          The real reason to vote for Harris in 2024 was as a means of voting against Trump and the fascist clown posse known as the Republican Party. This is the part where I could spend an hour writing our all of the reasons that Trump and the Republicans have been, continue to be, and will be bad for the country and the planet, but if you haven’t figured that one out by now you’re beyond help just like all the people who made the terrible decision to allow this to happen.

          I don’t blame the politicians for being politicians–that’s like blaming a dog for barking. I have reflected deeply on this past election, and the only conclusion that I can logically reach today is that it is the American people who are to blame for putting these terrible politicians there in the first place (either by voting for them OR failing to vote against them).

          One day America will cease to exist, and if there is anyone left on Earth at all, their history will accurately show that it was the American people who dumbed themselves to death.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Here, I fixed it:

      A group of people Nazis carrying Nazi flags demonstrated outside a community theater performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” in Livingston County, Michigan, in a display of antisemitism.
      Several masked men Nazis showed up waving Nazi flags and reportedly shouted antisemitic and racist slurs outside the American Legion Post 141 in Howell on Saturday during the play, according to CNN affiliate WXYZ.
      “People were shocked. They were appalled,” Army veteran Bobby Brite told WXYZ. “Everything you would expect.”
      Brite said many of the 75 people who watched the play were afraid to leave the building and had to be escorted to their cars.
      “Nobody in America should feel like that,” he said.
      Demonstrators Nazis were also seen in the nearby town of Fowlerville, according to eyewitnesses.
      Alex Sutliff and his wife were driving home through downtown Fowlerville when they came across a group of masked men Nazis waving Nazi flags.
      “They were saying awful antisemitic things that I don’t even feel comfortable repeating myself,” Sutliff told CNN on Tuesday.
      Sutliff, who filmed the brief encounter, said the group of Nazis “all stuck their hands up” and chanted “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump.”
      Sutliff’s interaction with the demonstrators Nazis took place at a stoplight, and when the light turned green, he drove away before things could escalate.
      He and his wife called local police to report what they saw, and then circled back to let the demonstrators Nazis know that authorities were on their way.
      “The second that they heard that they were on the way, they all packed up their stuff and ran away.”
      CNN has reached out to the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office for further details.
      The Fowlerville Community Theatre, which put on the production, said in a statement the play “centers on real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust” and added the cast and crew “endeavored to tell their story with as much realism as possible.”
      “On Saturday evening, things became more real than we expected,” the group said. “The presence of protesters Nazis (this one I may be willing to let slide if it’s a direct quote) outside gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding.”
      “As a theatre, we want to make people feel and think. We hope by presenting Anne’s story, we can help prevent the atrocities of the past from happening again.”
      Citing the sheriff’s office, The Detroit News reported the demonstrators Nazis left after being told to vacate the legion post’s parking lot, then ensued in a brief exchange of words with patrons while across the street.
      The Anti-Defamation League’s regional office in Michigan said on social media it was “disgusted by the far-right extremists Nazis (again, this may be a direct quote?) who praised Hitler and waved Nazi flags outside of an American Legion hosting the play.”
      The county has faced similar displays of racism this year. In July, White supremacists Nazis marched through Howell, located roughly 40 miles northwest of Detroit.
      Threats to Jews in the US tripled in the one-year period since the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, preliminary data provided to CNN by the ADL showed. In the weeks following October 7, reports of hate crimes and bias incidents targeting Jews, Muslims and Arabs all surged.
      “The Diary of Anne Frank” was published posthumously and has been translated into more than 70 languages in more than 60 nations, with several film and stage adaptations. Her diary is often a teen’s first introduction to the horrors of the Holocaust caused by Nazis during World War II.
      She and seven others, all Jewish, hiding in a secret annex above a canal-side warehouse in Amsterdam for nearly two years were detained and deported in 1944. Anne later died in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp at age 15.
      Growing fears of antisemitism remains a present issue – including in Amsterdam. In July, a statue of Anne in a local park was vandalized with the word “Gaza” scrawled in red paint. More recently, people were beaten and injured in violent clashes between fans of an Israeli soccer team and counter-protesters in the city over the weekend, which Dutch authorities condemned as antisemitic.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      FFS, how many times are the “liberal media” going to call the insurrectionists ( a way too nice of a term, by the way - they are truly terrorists in every sense of that term ) “rioters”?

    • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      As Nazis are. Bunch of scared, racist pedos (and before you come at me for the pedo comment, just take a moment and look up how many Nazis have pedo charges)

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      And I thought masks were bad. Not just bad, but downright dangerous.

      That’s what we kept being told all through COVID.

  • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    The far right extremists are feeling more and more emboldened.

    Don’t hide from these assholes. That’s how they win.

  • 🐋 Color 🔱 ♀@lemm.ee
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    8 days ago

    The fact that such hateful people still exist in the world is staggering. Anne Frank was only 15 years old when she died, so not only are they being incredibly racist, they’re also mocking the death of an innocent child. We only get to live on this planet for a short time, so why can’t we just love eachother?

  • samus12345@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    “I take it back, people are not truly good at heart. They’re miserable fucking assholes.”