“Such an incident – an offense against the memorial site – is, above all, a scandalous attack on the symbol of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of mankind and an extremely painful blow to the memory of all victims of German Nazism Auschwitz -Camp de Birkenau, “the statement said.
“We hope that the person or people who committed this outrageous act will be found and punished,” he continued, alongside a call for eyewitnesses to share information.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, established in Nazi-occupied Poland, was the largest concentration camp run by Hitler’s regime. More than 1.1 million men, women and children were systematically murdered there, many in the gas chambers of the camp. Some 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
The museum said security at the 170-hectare site is “constantly” extended but is funded from the museum’s budget, which has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany has steadily increased in recent years, Deutsche Welle reported in February.
There were at least 2,275 anti-Semitic crimes in the 12 months ending in late January 2021, of which 55 were violent, he reported.