Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today urged football fans visiting the Ukrainian city of Lviv, which is hosting three Group B matches of the Euro 2012 competition, to boycott two local restaurants with blatantly anti-Semitic themes. In a statement issued here today by its Israel director, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center named the “At the Golden Rose” and “Kryvika” (Hiding Place) restaurants in the center of Lviv as establishments which promote anti-Semitism and Ukrainian nationalist extremism, and called upon visiting fans to take their business elsewhere.

According to Zuroff, at the “At the Golden Rose,” guests are given hats with payot (sidecurls) to mimic ultra-Orthodox Jews (see photo) and there are no prices listed on the menu, because customers are expected to haggle over prices, a notorious anti-Semitic stereotype still prevalent in Eastern Europe.

The “Kryvika” recreates a bunker used by Ukrainian nationalist forces under Stefan Bandera who collaborated with the Nazis and whose supporters actively participated in the mass murder of local Jews in 1941. The password to enter the restaurant is: “Glory to the Ukraine.”

“By patronizing these restaurants, football fans will be unwittingly supporting the most extreme and dangerous elements of Ukrainian society and insulting the memory of tens of thousands of Holocaust victims murdered in Lviv by the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators, a message diametrically opposed to the goals of Euro 2012, ” said Zuroff.

This photo of Kryjivka is courtesy of TripAdvisor

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400.000 members. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the OAS and the Latin American Parliament.