Vandals Desecrate German Jewish Cemetery

Vandals desecrated the Jewish cemetery in the German town of Anklam over the weekend. According to local police, the vandals smashed gravestones and, in some cases, completely uprooted them.

Local media reported that the prosecution in Anklam is conducting an investigation into an incident of “disturbing the dead” and destruction of property. It was also reported that police are looking for eyewitnesses to the vandalism.

This is not the first time that Jewish cemeteries in Germany have been desecrated by anti-Semitic vandals. In 2008, a Jewish cemetery in the city of Gotha was desecrated, with the vandals hanging a pig's head on a metal Star of David.

Next to the pig's head was a cloth sign stating, “Six Million Lies.” Anti-Semites also vandalized a Jewish cemetery in nearby Erfurt with broken glass and a red liquid at the entrance.

Three weeks ago, 43 graves in two Jewish sections of Vienna’s main cemetery were desecrated. Tomb stones and slabs were found toppled or damaged at the Austrian capital’s Central Cemetery, but the vandals did not deface the graves with graffiti.

Several weeks before that, a Jewish cemetery was vandalized in the city of Rivne in western Ukraine. The vandals broke street lights and desecrated a plaque in the memory of 17,500 Ukrainian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The broken street lights were laid on the ground and arranged to spell out insulting phrases.

In April, members of the Jewish community in Geneva, Switzerland, woke up to discover that anti-Semitic symbols had been sprayed overnight on a monument to Holocaust victims who had lived in the city.

A recent report has shown that there has been an increase in the number of recorded anti-Semitic incidents in Switzerland.

The report by the CICAD, a Geneva-based organization that coordinates the fight against anti-Semitism and defamation, shows that the number of anti-Semitic acts increased by 28 percent in 2011, totaling 130 cases, as opposed to 104 the previous year.

Arutz Sheva