Holocaust Survivors Viciously Beaten In Amsterdam Home Invasion

A married couple in Amsterdam who survived the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews were reportedly brutally beaten and robbed in an apparent anti-Semitic hate crime.

The elderly Holocaust survivors, married 56 years, are now both wheelchair-bound and forced to relocate to an assisted living facility as a result of the severe injuries they suffered in the home invasion.

Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands and the country’s largest city.

It is widely acknowledged that anti-Semitism, including anti-Jewish violence, is on the rise in Europe.

The Daily Mail described what happened to the Jewish couple in the barbaric encounter that occurred last month but is only now surfacing in the media.

“Dutch police have launched an investigation after two armed men claiming to be police officers forced their way into the Amsterdam home of Shmuel Blog, 87 and his wife Diana, 86. The criminals called the elderly couple ‘dirty Jews’ and demanded they hand over valuables before the savage attack, which left Mr. Blog blind and confined to a wheelchair for life after breaking his thigh. Mrs. Blog is also expected to spend the rest of her life in a chair suffering from ‘extreme pains.'”

According to Israel National News, which identifies the victims’ last name as Blugs, the assailants entered the apartment under false pretenses, explaining that “[t]he Blugs say two men, who looked to be of Moroccan descent, knocked on the door to their apartment, claiming to be the police and demanding entrance.”

In addition to severely beating and tying them up, the thieves took off with many of the elderly couple’s possessions, Ynet News reported.

“They wanted to chop off my finger because the rings didn’t come off fast enough,” Diana, who still bears dog bite scars [from an attack at the Auschwitz concentration camp], remembers as she cries. “They called us ‘dirty Jews’ and said: ‘You don’t need your jewelry anymore. You’ve been wearing it for too long. Now it’s all ours.'”

The couple’s son has offered a 10,000 euro reward (equivalent to about $11,000 in U.S. dollars) for information leading to the arrest of the suspects, with concerned Dutch citizens adding several additional euros to the inducement.

The Dutch embassy in Israel issued a statement about the violent attack on the elderly Holocaust survivors resident in Amsterdam.

“This is a shocking incident, a brutal robbery that extremely affected the victims. Dutch police is handling this case with the utmost seriousness, and is investigating it. No suspects have been apprehended yet, so it’s difficult to make unequivocal statements about the motives… In general, it’s important to emphasize that everyone should feel safe in the Netherlands. We will not tolerate any incident of discrimination and anti-Semitism…”

[Amsterdam photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images News]