Vandals defaced a memorial honoring the 300,000 Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp in 1943. The desecration, discovered Tuesday at the Umschlagplatz deportation square, included graffiti equating the Holocaust to recent events in Gaza, reading: “Warsaw 1943 = Gaza 2025.”
The memorial, inscribed with a verse from the Book of Job – “Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest” – stands at the site where Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto were forcibly assembled before being sent to their deaths in cattle cars.
This incident is part of a troubling pattern of vandalism targeting Holocaust remembrance sites in Poland since the onset of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Last month, the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw was also defaced. Polish authorities have yet to apprehend suspects in any of these cases.
In another notable incident last year, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at Warsaw’s Nożyk Synagogue, the city’s only surviving pre-Holocaust synagogue, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. While the wooden structure was miraculously spared from significant damage, the attack left minor scorch marks on the exterior wall.
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Dr. Ja’akow Liwne, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, condemned the latest acts of vandalism on the social media platform X, emphasizing Poland’s “special responsibility” to protect Jewish heritage sites and Holocaust memorials. He urged Polish authorities to act swiftly to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Before World War II, Warsaw was home to a vibrant Jewish community of 350,000, constituting about one-third of the city’s population. The Polish capital boasted hundreds of synagogues and prayer houses, serving as a hub of Jewish culture and life before the Holocaust.
The recent attacks have heightened concerns about the preservation and security of sites that bear witness to one of history’s darkest chapters.