More than one hundred tombstones were found desecrated in the Jewish cemetery in Westhoffen near the French border town of Strasbourg on Tuesday.
Anti-Semitic symbols, including swastikas, were found on at least 107 Jewish graves inside a cemetery located in Westhoffen, town leaders said in a statement.
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The Jewish cemetery in Strasbourg earlier this year following a similar defacement in February
(Photo: Reuters)
"This discovery comes as anti-Semitic graffiti was already found in the town of Schaffhouse-sur-Zorn", about twenty kilometers from Westhoffen, the statement added.
Local authorities are currently conducting a preliminary investigation and collecting evidence inside the desecrated cemetery.
"We strongly condemn these heinous anti-Semitic acts that once again strike the Lower Rhine and express the utmost support for the Jewish community," district representative Jean-Luc Marx told local media.
The cemetery in Schaffhouse-sur-Zorn houses some 700 Jewish graves, according to AFP. For several months, the Alsace region has been facing an upsurge in anti-Semitic, racist graffiti and vandalism.
In February, 96 graves contained in the historic Quatzenheim Jewish cemetery, about fifteen kilometers from Westhoffen, were desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti, as well as 37 Jewish graves and a monument in Herrlisheim, north-east of Strasbourg, on December 11, 2018.
A memorial marking the site of Strasbourg's Old Synagogue, destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, was apparently vandalized in March - 11 days after the Quatzenheim Jewish cemetery was desecrated.
The synagogue, which was built in 1898 and was the Strasbourg Jewish community's main place of worship, was ransacked and burnt to the ground by Hitler Youth on Sept 30, 1940.
In February 2015, around 300 graves were vandalized in a Jewish cemetery in nearby Sarre-Union, an act for which five adolescents were given suspended prison terms of eight to 18 months in 2017.