Unknown vandals defaced a tomb and Holocaust monuments at the Jewish cemetery in Sochaczew, Poland with anti-semitic graffiti and pro-ISIS slogans
The graffiti, believed to have been spray-painted Sunday night, included the Star of David on a gallows, a swastika, the number 88 (a code for “Heil Hitler”) and slogans — in English — including “Allah bless Hitler,” “Islam with dominate”, “Holocaust never happened,” “Islamic State was here,” and “F–k Jews.”
The scrawls defaced the red-brick ohel of the Bornstein family of tzaddiks, as well as two Holocaust memorials standing nearby. (Virtual Shtetl reported that similar slogans had been found at the railway station.)
A statement on the web site of the Museum of Sochaczew Land and Bzura Battlefield, which maintains the cemetery, condemned the vandals as “barbarians,” and director Paweł Rozdżestwieński called on local citizens to repair the damage:
For years, the Museum has meticulously protected the most minute past artifacts of all cultures and religions. We were astonished to see this barbaric behavior which runs contrary to the human sense of decency. As museum professionals and at the same time residents of Sochaczew, we feel ashamed and would like to ask all inhabitants to help us organize an initiative to restore the cemetery’s decent appearance.”
Monika Krawczyk, the Director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) told Virtual Shtetl the incident was “disgraceful.”
The construction of the ohel was the idea of Mr Yehuda Widawski (95), who was born in Poland and lives in Israel. He is full of energy and is eager to tell people about his positive experiences with Poles and his cooperation with local governments in commemoration projects. When he is in Poland, he always visits Sochaczew. I hope that by the time he visits us next time, these horrible inscriptions will be removed and the responsibility will not be on the Jewish community as “the cemetery’s owner.”
6 comments on “Poland: “Barbarians” vandalize Sochaczew Jewish cemetery”
I know Sochaczew quite well and people there were really appalled at what happened. Unfortunately, in a lot of countries there’s always a minority who behave in an ignorant way. I still think more could be done to celebrate Jewish history in these small towns. Sochaczew was such an important centre for Jewish life. The last time I went to the museum in Sochaczew there wasn’t much information about this. In bigger Polish cities there are more and more Jewish themed cultural festivals and celebrations which allow Poles to reconnect with their history.
Today we organised action in Sochaczew, we cleaned graffiti. http://www.muzeumsochaczew.pl/aktualnosci/sochaczew-cmentarz-zydowski-wyczyszczony/
Thanks for the link — I already posted about this on our Jewish Heritage Europe Facebook page, but now can do an update here on the web site
I wonder how much outrage there would be were, for example, a historic African-American cemetery vandalized with denials or justifications of slavery, Jim Crow, etc.—there would be plenty, I suspect. Yet, the relatively-little amount of outrage about the desecration of the Sochaczew Jewish Cemetery is once again proof that few to none in the world at large care about Jews.
I’m also sure that there are also some whom blame us for what happened to us. Even last night re another incident, someone commented that the incident was our fault and propagated another Anti-Semitic lie within his blame of us.
how sad and how ignorant! I hope people will remember that there were good Polish people also!
Tell me the difference between good and evil.
In historical perspective betrayal may be considered as good and the other way round.It is just about interests and what you imagine the knowledge about truth should be .Amos said we have to complete the creation ….we are still in the very beginning!
Take the inquisition and now 500 years later my people welcome again in Spain…..and so on.
See Bergson : Les deux sources de la morale et de la Religion.
And many more….