Amersham, Buckinghamshire – A Jewish-Israeli mother-of-two was sent two envelopes each containing just a single WWII-era stamp of Adolf Hitler in a targeted antisemitic threat, which police failed to investigate.
Officers did not collect evidence despite a return name and address in Poland being printed on the back of both of the notes, but Thames Valley Police claim the report was investigated. No arrest has been made.
The 49-year-old, who has asked not be named to protect her family, received the two padded envelopes through her letterbox at her home in Amersham, Buckinghamshire on the same day in early May last year.
Each envelope, addressed to her personally, contained another white envelope, which had inside them a small plastic coin bag containing a stamp emblazoned with the Fuhrer’s face, which is believed to be from early 1940s Nazi Germany.
The stamps do not appear to be valuable and sets of similar ones can be purchased online for just a few pounds.
The defiant mother issued a warning to the racist and ‘cowardly’ perpetrators, telling MailOnline: ‘If they were to knock on the door I’d knock them down. I have young children and I don’t need my husband to do that.’
But she said that she did not fully realise the implications of what she was sent at first, as she was in the process of grieving for her father who had died just weeks earlier. ‘I looked at it and it didn’t register,’ she told MailOnline.
One of the WWII-era stamps from Nazi Germany, which was sent to the Jewish mother in May
‘I was bewildered to be honest, I didn’t really get it. I showed to my husband and we said ‘what the hell’.
‘It only registered when we had a non-Jewish friend over. I showed it to him and he was horrified – as I would be today. He said: ‘What the f***, that’s horrific, that’s horrible’.’
She said her friend advised her to report the incident to Thames Valley Police.
The Jewish woman moved to the UK from Israel in the mid-1990s, and now lives with her husband, 13-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son.
She initially went to the local police station to report the hateful post in mid-July last year, but found that the High Wycombe station was the nearest one where the force would accept a report in person without prior warning.
She said the receptionist who took the details did not appear to realise whose portrait was on the stamp or why she was there. ‘I don’t know if I can fault her for that or not as I don’t take for granted people understanding our issues and racism,’ she said.
‘But she didn’t really understand why I was there. She didn’t identify who the bloke was on the stamp.
‘But she said someone will contact me, which they did the next day.’
An officer called her the next day to confirm some details, the woman explained.
‘He said ‘we’ll see what what we can do’ and asked if I had the envelopes. I said ‘yes’. He said he would send a unit to collect the stamps and envelopes so they have it as evidence, and forensics could take it from there.’
‘They haven’t done it and no one has called to arrange it.’
She has not contacted Thames Valley Police again to investigate as she does not believe they will bother. ‘My impression was that they decided it wasn’t worth their time.
‘I don’t have much faith in them as I saw how they responded.’
The lack of investigation was particularly was particularly disappointing as the stamps were sent via registered post, seemingly from an address in Poland, an obvious line of enquiry to follow up.
‘They can trace where it was sent from – if it was sent from a post office, maybe there’s a camera. But someone thought it was too difficult or complicated, and ‘not worth my time’.’
Not willing to let the it get the best of her, she said: ‘I don’t ever feel like a victim, and I don’t raise my kids to ever feel like that.
‘I did everything I could on my end. I know how to defend my family and not depend on someone else doing it for me.’
Referencing the rise in anti-semitic hate across the UK since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, she added: ‘I would be sad if what happened in October has changed things.
‘I live in an area which is not particularly Jewish so we don’t get incidents as we’re not visually different. After the October attacks, I got plenty of support from local friends, Christian and Muslim.
‘But the police – it is what it is, they never responded.’
Asked how she felt about the threats from the unknown anti-semite, the woman said: ‘I was worried, as it was targeted.
‘When I spoke to police, the only thing I asked was: ‘I know this might be tough to investigate but it’s not hard to see if anyone else has received something like it.’
‘I’m willing to bet money that the police haven’t even checked it. But am I the only one?’
Since the receiving the threatening stamps which show the face of the dictator who murdered six million Jews across Europe in the Holocaust, she has upped security at her home, adding extra cameras to cover any blind spots.
While she says she can take care of herself, she is concerned about the safety of her two children. ‘The kids are always attended, they’re never alone – especially since October,’ she said.
‘I’m scared for our kids. We have avoided going to places where we could be spotted as foreigners or Israelis and I don’t want any problems.
‘I’m proud of where I’m from proud of who I am. I’m not scared but I do have young children.’
She said her son and daughter are ‘totally unaware’ of the racist threat. ‘I haven’t showed it to them. I don’t want to scare them. They don’t need to live in fear.’
A Thames Valley Police spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘We received a report of a hate crime incident at [the victim’s address], at around 11am on 13 July.
‘The report was investigated and we are making a public appeal to anyone with information to contact us.
‘Anyone with further information should call 101 or make a report on our website, quoting reference number 43230310100.
‘We take all reports of hate crime seriously as we know that they have a devastating impact on individual victims and targeted communities.
‘Anti-Semitism and all other racial and faith-based discrimination will not be tolerated in any form.
‘So far in the investigation, no arrests have been made.’
When asked what the scale of the investigation was, the spokesperson added: ‘Officers fully debriefed the victim to determine risk, impact and proportionate lines of enquiry and the appropriate action was taken, such as actions to locate the address from which the letter was sent.’