Now, as in 1990s, they march openly in cities like Plzeň and Prague.

But today they also infiltrate internet chat rooms, make contacts with right-wing extremists in neighboring countries, and pose as vigilantes against crime.

They are organizing their still relatively small numbers into a smarter, craftier political entity in an effort to force themselves into the public consciousness.

"They are trying to present themselves as the force of law and order," says Miroslav Mareš, Czech neo-Nazi expert and political science professor at Masaryk University (Masarykova univerzita).

"They hope to address the broader political spectrum in the next elections."

At their marches, they claim to be nothing more than nationalists, the only ones who will fight to uphold the identity and integrity of the Czech nation.

"Our only duty is to continue in our fight by defeating this rotten liberal regime with its own weapons -- in the elections," said Tomáš Vandas, head of the Dělnická strana (Workers' Party), at a neo-Nazi march in Plzeň on March 1st, 2008.

Propagating outright Nazi ideology would be breaking Czech law, so they skirt around it.

Prague, for example, struck down their request to march through the Jewish quarter on November 10th, 2007, the 69-year-anniversary of Kristallnacht, yet they tried to gather there anyway, claiming to be protesting the Czech Republic's involvement in the Iraq War.

The Czech police managed to keep hundreds of skinheads from coming into the city, a move praised by anti-racism groups.

A few hundred neo-Nazis were able to gather in Plzeň on January 19th, 2008, the anniversary of the first transports of local Jews to Nazi concentration camps.

The Plzeň mayor banned the march, but they appealed to the courts and succeeded in demonstrating on March 1st, protesting the infringement of their freedom of speech rights.

"The movement is more emboldened now in terms of coming out in public for demonstrations and arguing for freedom of speech," Gwendolyn Albert, human rights advocate and author of the 2006 European Network Against Racism report on racism in the Czech Republic, said in a phone interview.

"They are selecting dates for marches that are of extreme significance to the Holocaust with no other intention but to offend. This kind of targeting of Holocaust-sensitive topics, trying to offend people and win supporters, this way is new."

But is it working? How does mainstream Czech society react to these recent displays of neo-Nazi activity?

At the March 1st rally in Plzeň, neo-Nazi opponents outnumbered the demonstrators by the hundreds, although many of these counter-protestors, anarchists and anti-fascists, were extremists in their own right.

The Židovská obec Plzeň (Jewish Community of Plzeň) organization, meanwhile, has booked up all possible demonstration dates from March to July to prevent the neo-Nazis from marching again in the coming months.

"This is exactly how it all started in Nazi Germany," Eva Stixova, the head of the ŽOP said by phone.

"They started marching and heiling, then came transports and that was it. Back then nobody stood up to them because they were afraid. Now we can't be indifferent."

While the reaction of minority community organizations as well as that of opposing political movements has been swift and strong, Albert, an American, thinks there's danger in the way that average Czechs passively view the neo-Nazi movement.

"There is a real desire for Czechs to keep the Czech Republic for themselves," said Albert, "but the rest of the world is coming through here at 100 miles per hour."

According to Albert, Czech citizens are resisting what they perceive as the physical and cultural encroachment of outsiders into their space as they struggle to forge a sense of national identity. After 50 years under Communist rule, Czechs are now being thrown head-first into a multi-cultural environment.

In the midst of a rapid transition to a market economy, a surge in tourism and inclusion in the European Union, time for adjustment has been scarce.

"This part of the world is still undergoing a reevaluation of what the Holocaust meant and how to deal with it," says Albert.

"Under Communist rule, we weren't able to discuss it and deal with it, and now after a 50-year gap, we are facing a new era without coming to terms with the past."

Now some fear that the neo-Nazi movement is taking advantage of this decades-old dearth in communication, and manipulating Czech society's suspicion of outsiders to benefit their extremist cause.

Mareš says the members of the movement are being particularly strategic in using negative attitudes towards the Roma population to gain support in the mainstream environment.

Neo-Nazis are forming groups of vigilantes called "national guards" to protect against crime in Roma areas, but actually intend simply to persecute the residents.

"They are counting on the ethno-ization of social problems, and, thereby they are trying to create the notion that crime is a Roma problem," said Mareš.

"That's what their goal is, and it's a fact that it's finding a willing ear among the public, and not just among the lower classes. These notions can become established even among the elite."

Despite these recent gains for the neo-Nazi movement, support is still extremely limited, but that doesn't make their cause -- the propagation of hate -- any less threatening.

That's one reason why Czech non-governmental organizations like Člověk v tísni (People in Need) support anti-extremism programs in schools across the country.

For instance, a new ad campaign designed by Člověk v tísni shows young people what is really behind the behavior of hate groups masked as defenders of Czech honor.

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that Czechs in numerous surveys have in majority displayed great antipathy for the some 5,000 neo-Nazis active in a country of 10.2 million.

It's also important for Americans to understand that while demonstrating with a swastika, publishing Hitler's Mein Kampf or giving the heil Hilter salute is legal in the US, any open displays of Nazism in Europe are often criminal offenses.

But the wrinkle is that according to polls, most Czechs say they would not want to live next to a Roma, or gypsy, and the risk of clever extremists eliciting sympathy is as real as the black-booted xenophobe on Wenceslas Square.

Aisha Gawad is a third year student at New York University studying journalism and Middle Easter and Islamic Studies. She is from Burke, Virginia.

 

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