“Demand to Booking.com: ‘Remove Aparthaus Paradies from your Directory and explain the antisemitic cause of the removal on your website.”
“We are advising our global constituency, the broader Jewish community and their Gentile friends to blacklist this horrific hotel.”
Paris, 15 August 2017
In a letter to Swiss Justice Minister, Simonetta Sommaruga, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, reported that the Centre’s membership was “aghast at the antisemitic signs at the Aparthaus Paradies hotel in Arosa, Grisons, that confronted on Orthodox Jewish family upon their arrival”:
- At the front porch: “To our Jewish Guests. Please take a shower before you go swimming. If you break the rules, I am forced to close the swimming pool for you. Thank you for your understanding. Ruth Thomann”
- Another, in the kitchen, “To our Jewish guests. You are allowed to approach the fridge between the hours 10:00 – 11:00 in the morning and 16:30 – 17:30 in the evening. I hope you understand that our team does not like to be disturbed every time.”
Samuels argued that “the reference to ‘showers’ can be construed as a patently vicious reference to the fake shower heads in the Nazi gas chambers,” continuing, “moreover, such signs in English are clearly aimed at foreign Jewish tourists.”
The letter stressed that “this case is sadly redolent of Swiss ‘neutrality’ during World Word Two expressed in closing its frontiers to Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, and in demanding that Jews’ I.D. documents bear a prominent ‘J’ which, in effect, became a death sentence.”
The Centre advised the Minister that “it was calling on Gillian Tans, CEO of booking.com to remove the Aparthaus Paradie from its directory and to explain the antisemitic cause of the removal on its website.”
“We similarly urge you to investigate the circumstances, the responsibility of Ruth Thomann and to take the necessary legal measures to close this hotel of hate and penalize its management… We are advising our global constituency, the broader Jewish community and their Gentile friends to blacklist this horrific hotel,” concluded Samuels.