Hot damn, those Europeans sure have their Peace Act together.

And it seems there is no place in Europe that's immune to hate crimes like the arson attack on the Merkaz Hatorah high school. The Gagny fire made headlines across France, and on the same day, the suicide bombings of two Istanbul synagogues led newscasts around the world. But in the week before the blaze, hundreds of hate crimes were committed throughout Europe against Jews, Muslims, Roma, Pakistanis and Africans.

On Nov. 10, German police discovered a large black swastika painted on the wall of an empty factory building in Marienwerder Brandenburg. On Nov. 14, a box of six Molotov cocktails was found outside a synagogue in Ivry-sur-Seine, just south of Paris.

On Nov. 15, this message appeared on a web forum hosted in the Netherlands, according to Magenta, a watchdog group in Amsterdam: "Just throw that Muslim vermin, those f___ing Muslim rats out of the country."

And on the same day, Agrese 95, a Czech "white power" band, played before some 150 people in central Bohemia, singing lyrics like: "Enough tolerance ... Your future is ovens and gas chambers."

TIME Europe Magazine: Seven Days Of Hatred -- Dec. 08, 2003