A Philadelphia police supervisor meets with Eszter Kutas, executive director of the Philadelphia Holocaust Foundation, after a green spray painted swastika was found on the wall of a building that is adjacent to the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza on the Ben Franklin Parkway, near North 17th Street.
A wall adjacent to Philadelphia’s Holocaust memorial was vandalized with a swastika on Sunday.
The antisemitic image was scrawled in green spray paint about two feet by two feet in size. It appeared on a wall of a building adjacent to the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza on Benjamin Franklin Parkway at about 1:30 a.m., an official from the organization that maintains the memorial said.
Police are investigating.
The vandalism comes amid a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents both nationally and locally. The Anti-Defamation League cited an 820% rise in such events between October and December in Philadelphia.
Antisemitic incidents have soared in Philly — but counting pro-Palestinian rallies draws rebuke
Eszter Kutas, executive director of the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation, which manages the plaza, said news of the vandalism was “very, very upsetting, but not shocking for our community.”
Kutas, who had already met with police officials, said video footage she viewed shows a man in a ski mask approaching the site from 16th Street, then scrawling the swastika on the wall. She and police are asking anyone with information to come forward.
“We want to use everything in our power to see justice in this case,” Kutas said.
“Though the Israel-Hamas war is happening thousands of miles away, it has rippled everywhere,” Kutas said.
“We all know that we live in a very complex and sensitive world,” said Kutas. “What is shocking for the Jewish community over the last several months is how much what’s happening in Israel and Gaza is happening in our own Jewish community in America.”
©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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