A prominent member of a neo-Nazi group was sentenced to two months in prison for projecting an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on the Anne Frank House Museum, the Amsterdam building where Frank and his family hid from the Nazis during World War II. .
Robert Wilson, a Polish-Canadian citizen, had been accused of insulting a group and inciting discrimination for posting the phrase “Ann [sic] “Frank Invented the Pen” on the side of the museum in February with a laser projector mounted on his truck.
Although the words seem harmless, they are a reference to a nonsensical conspiracy theory that the Jewish teenager’s famous diary was a forgery.
The incident sparked immediate outrage in the Netherlands, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemning what he called a “reprehensible” act.
“We can and should never accept this,” Rutte posted on X at the time.
The court appeared to agree Thursday.
“Given the great symbolic importance of Anne Frank’s diary for the commemoration of the persecution of the Jews, this statement can be considered a form of Holocaust denial,” the court wrote in its decision.
Robert Wilson, a Polish-Canadian citizen, was sentenced to two months in prison for projecting an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory at the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam. AP Photo/Peter Dejong
Wilson, who was not present in court during the verdict, has already spent two months in pretrial detention, so he has effectively served his sentence.
A recording of his anti-Semitic stunt was posted on an anti-Jewish Telegram channel. But the court said there was not enough evidence to convict him of distributing the racist image.
Wilson has long proclaimed his innocence, saying he was in Amsterdam for a weekend getaway with his girlfriend and daughter but didn’t even know where the museum was.
The museum is in the house where Frank and his family hid from the Nazis during World War II. AP Wilson projected the phrase “Ann [sic] “Frank invented the pen” in the building, which is a reference to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Frank’s diary was forged.
Prosecutors have said Wilson is a prominent member of the Goyim Defense League, a neo-Nazi group.
It’s not his first run-in with the law either.
In the United States, he faces charges of assault and shouting homophobic insults at a neighbor. And Polish authorities are still investigating whether Wilson stood in front of the Auschwitz concentration camp with a sign printed with anti-Semitic slogans.
The phrase Wilson projected was a reference to a theory pushed by Holocaust deniers that Frank’s diary is fake because several pages found among his articles were written in ballpoint pen.
Wilson claimed that he is innocent and does not know where the museum in Amsterdam is. AP Photo/Peter Dejong
The pages, found in the 1980s, were accidentally left in the diary in the 1960s, according to investigators. But conspiracy theorists say they prove the diary is fake because the ballpoint pen did not exist in the Netherlands in the 1940s.
Frank, who spent more than two years hiding with her family in a 17th-century canal house, kept a diary throughout her meltdown, which ended when the Gestapo arrested her family in the summer of 1944.
His father, Otto, was the only one to survive the German extermination camps to which they were sent.
She published her daughter’s diary in 1947, fulfilling the 16-year-old’s lifelong dream of being a writer.
With post cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn