March 19, 2012

Jewish cemetery in Poland is vandalized

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Polish police are investigating the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in northeastern Poland.

Monika Krawczyk, the CEO of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, said vandals spray-painted swastikas and anti-Semitic images and slogans on graves, a Holocaust memorial and the entrance to the Jewish cemetery in Wysokie Mazowieckie near Bialystok on Sunday night.

One of the slogans read “Here is Poland—not Israel,” which, according to Krawczyk, is a slogan used by Polish neo-Nazi groups. No Jews live in Wysokie.

The cemetery, which was devastated in World War II, was restored in 2006 and protected by a fence. It is maintained by the foundation.

Krawczyk said there were several anti-Semitic vandal attacks on Jewish sites in northeastern Poland in 2011. But, she said, “We had not seen an anti-Semitic attack on such a scale this year.”