(JTA) – Vandals damaged and scrawled anti-Semitic graffiti on the family tomb of leading Polish writer, editor and former anti-communist dissident Adam Michnik.
Polish Radio reported that the defacement of the tomb of Michnik’s father, a prominent Jewish communist, and his non-Jewish mother was discovered Monday evening by a member of the public who had been visiting Warsaw’s Stare Powazki cemetery. Part of the tomb was broken at the base and a Star of David hanging from a gallows was scratched on its surface.
Michnik, a prominent anti-communist dissident in the 1960s and 1970s, was a key activist in the Solidarity movement and co-founder and editor in chief of the liberal Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
“I would like to believe that this was done by a person with severe emotional or psychological problems who had heard propaganda against Gazeta [Wyborcza] and the Michnik family,” Polish Radio quoted Michnik as saying. “Because this is so contrary to Polish tradition. The grave is a sacred place for us.”
Michnik, who identifies as a Pole of Jewish origin, said this was the third and most serious act of vandalism on the tomb in six years.
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