Argentina police shut down Nazi and antisemitic bookseller

Argentine authorities raided and closed a bookstore selling publications with Nazi and antisemitic content online, police in the capital Buenos Aires said on Wednesday, following a two-year investigation promoted by a Jewish group.

The Libreria Argentina establishment sold books with images of swastikas, iron crosses, and the imperial eagle of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party, as well as Nazi propaganda texts.

"We are shocked by how profuse the material is," said Marcos Cohen from the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations, the Jewish group acting as plaintiff in the process. "I don't remember anything like this being found before."

Displaying Nazi symbols is a crime under Argentine law. Police arrested one person during the raids in the San Isidro district, located on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Antisemitism in Argentina

Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, with many immigrating after the expulsion from Spain and pogroms in Eastern Europe and ahead of the Second World War, during which the Nazis killed six million European Jews.

After the war, many Nazi officials including death camp supervisor Adolf Eichmann also emigrated to Argentina to avoid trials for war crimes.

Several antisemitic groups emerged in the following decades and in 1994 the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 85 people and wounding hundreds.