The historic Jewish cemetery in Split, Croatia suffered vandalism earlier this month, when unknown persons forced open three graves and damaged their tombstones and iron fences. A fourth gravestone was displaced and broken, and the decorations of several graves were wrecked.
Ana Lebl, the president of the Jewish community in Split, writes that the incident took place some time between April 10 and 13. “The damage was reported to the police who came promptly and made written and photographic evidence of this act made by one or more unknown vandals,” she writes.
The vandalism, she writes, “was not followed by any graffiti, slogans or messages pointing to anti-Semitism.”
The old Jewish cemetery is located on Marjan hill overlooking the city. It was established in 1573 and was active until 1945. (Since 1946 the Jews of Split are interred in the Jewish section of the public cemetery of Lovrinac.) This old cemetery, with more than 700 still visible graves, became protected as a monument of culture by the Ministry of Culture of Croatia on March 5, 2012.
