(JHE) — The vandals who smashed windows of the former synagogue in the town of Orăștie in Transylvania were kids aged 9 to 14, police say. There is no active Jewish community in Orăștie, and the 19th century building is used for cultural events and exhibitions.
This was the third attack reported in June carried out on a Jewish heritage site by children or young teens. Police in Poland identified youths aged 12-13 as the perpetrators of vandal attacks that toppled or smashed dozens of gravestones in Jewish cemeteries in the cities of Wroclaw and Bielsko Biala.
The shattered windows of the former synagogue in Orăștie were discovered Monday morning by two archaeologists who work at the local Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art, but officials said the vandalism probably took place Saturday night.
An communique by police on Tuesday said that following investigations carried out by Orăștie Municipality Police,
the presumptive perpetrators were identified in the person of minors ages 9 to 14 years old. Further investigations are being conducted into the crime of destruction.
It did not say how many were involved.
The Orăștie synagogue was built in 1879. It underwent restoration by the municipality in the 2000s, which removed furnishings and other interior traces of its religious identity. There is a commemorative plaque on the facade.
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Read our article about the Polish cases
1 comment on “Romania: Police ID kids as culprits who smashed windows in the former synagogue in Orăștie”
You say in the article above, that the Orastie synagogue «underwent restoration by the municipality in the 2000s, which removed furnishings and other interior traces of its religious identity».
Why do you use the term «restauration» when the Orastie municipality did exactly the opposite by willfully defacing the synagogue of its religious identity?
Is this official vandalism not in line with the latest, more childish vandalism?
Do they arrest merely the not-well-enough organised vandals, but condone their own statal vandalism?