Racism Report 2003 - Zara

Page 14 Cases: Public Space Racism Report 2003whole watermelons available. After her friendly request to have one cut up she was served reluctantly and treated ina very unfriendly and condescending manner by Ms. M. During the course of the discussion to what extent cuttingup a melon was at all possible or necessary, Ms. M. then also sneered at the African origin of my wife in front of ourthree children and told her to ‚go back to where you came from‘.The incident was not only witnessed by our children but also by several customers as well as the staff present. Thecustomers especially expressed their indignation about how my wife was treated. However, in this connection wewould not like to leave unmentioned that at least one of your staff, Ms. Preißler behaved in exemplary fashion andalso apologised for the behaviour of her manager. We hope very much that she will not be called to account by hersuperiors regarding this. We would also ask you to acknowledge Ms. Preißler‘s exemplary behaviour in an appropriateway.My wife has been a customer at Billa for decades and over the course of these years has been shopping in manybranches in Vienna and its surroundings without ever being treated in anything approaching such an outrageous way.(...) We are extremely concerned that the sales staff are not urged towards appropriate friendly behaviour towardscustomers and particularly that no attention is directed towards the selection of branch managers, especially forsuch sensitive locations as the airport with an extremely high proportion of international customers. We expect thatMs. M. apologises to my wife for this incident, at least in writing, and ask you, also in your own interests, to takeprecautions so that neither Ms. M. nor other employees treat customers in such a degrading way in future. (...)‘A ZARA staff member offered the couple further assistance. In January 2004 the family received a written apologyand a bottle of wine from Billa. Eine ZARA-Mitarbeiterin bietet dem Ehepaar H. weitere Hilfe an. Im Jänner 2004erhält die Familie eine schriftliche Entschuldigung inklusive einer Flasche Wein von BILLA.373839A., born in Nigeria, went shopping at a DIY store (OBI). He was stopped at the cash desk by securityMr.Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-Arbeitstaff. Mr. A. was accused of stealing tools. He was taken into a room and searched for the supposedly stolen tools.The security man found no tools - apart from the one Mr. A. wanted to buy. He became annoyed, called Mr. A. ‚youshit Nigger‘ and threw him out of the room.Mr. A. left the DIY store and called the police who arrived a short time later. Even in front of the police officersthe OBI employee abused Mr. A. One of the police officers took Mr. A.‘s particulars. The other policeman went withthe security man back into the store and spoke with him. After Mr. A.‘s details had been taken he was sent away.ZARA consulted with the manager of the OBI branch and he apologised to Mr. A. The employee of the securityfirm, however, did not see why and described different circumstances of the case.H. described what she experienced on 20 October 2003 at around 8.45 am on the 13A bus: as sheMs.Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-Arbeitwas getting onto the bus a woman wearing a headscarf wanted to pay the bus driver for her ticket. As he gave herthe change he said, ‚You should finally learn German.‘ Ms. H. was most annoyed at this incident and asked ZARA tointervene with Wiener Linien. ZARA complained to Wiener Linien who answered as follows: ‚(...) At the stated timethe interval between buses on the 13A line is 3-6 minutes. We therefore ask you either to inform us of the busregistration number or give us a description of the driver. (...) It is of course also in the interests of our companythat any misconduct of our staff should be punished and prevented in future. For this we also need the feedback ofour passengers. However, we ask you to take into account that the relevant employee can only be traced when theinformation is as exact as possible.‘Ms. H. can no longer remember the driver exactly and also had not written down the number of the bus.W. sent ZARA some pamphlets with anti-Mr.Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-ArbeitSemitic and anti-Islamic contents which he found in thestation waiting room in Fehring in Styria. He simply wantedto have them documented.4041B. drew ZARA‘s attention to stickers: ‚TheMs.Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-ArbeitIndians couldn‘t stop the settlers. Now they live on reservations.If you want to save your children from this, writeto: Facts, PO Box 34, 2100 Korneuburg. Imprint: Owner,publisher and producer: H. J. Rosenkranz, 2111 Seebarn.‘ The producer is Hans Jakob Rosenkranz, the husband of themember of parliament and leader of the Freedom Party in Lower Austria, Barbara Rosenkranz. Mr. Rosenkranz receiveda letter of complaint from ZARA, which he did not answer.Graz FPÖ put up a poster: ‚Drug dealers off to Karlau and not in a council house‘. (Translator‘s note:TheZivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-ArbeitKarlau is a prison.) Ms. L. sent ZARA media reaction to the poster for documentary purposes. The FPÖ denied any racist