Vandals damaged a monument commemorating the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz a day before it was unveiled in a ceremony at Amsterdam’s Wertheim Gardens.
At Sunday’s ceremony, which took place despite the vandalism, Amsterdam Mayor Ed Van Thijn, a Jew and a Holocaust survivor, pointed out how the monument’s defacement created a link with the monument’s theme, the defacement of the heavens after Auschwitz.
Jewish authorities who attended the memorial service — an annual remembrance of the day Auschwitz was liberated — were shocked and angered. They called upon Amsterdam’s citizens to protest the desecration by bringing flowers to the site.
“This act has so much violence in it that it cannot remain unanswered,” said Rabbi Avraham Soetendorp.
The monument, designed by the Dutch sculptor and author Jan Wolkers, was originally placed in a municipal cemetery in 1977.
However, it was decided to move the sculpture from the cemetery after plans were made to build a crematorium on the cemetery’s grounds.
The Netherlands Auschwitz Committee thought it would be inappropriate to place the Auschwitz memorial near a working crematorium, as Jewish victims were burned in Auschwitz’s crematoria after being murdered.
The monument unveiled Sunday was a larger version of the original sculpture and was placed in the Wertheim Gardens near the Hollandse Schouwburg, an unused Amsterdam theater. The building was used by the Nazis from 1942 to 1944 as a collection center for Jews who had been rounded up for deportation.
On the day of the unveiling, the monument’s glass plates were found to have been smashed by a pickax or similar object.
The monument’s design was of six mirrors, containing small cracks, facing the sky. Wolkers placed the cracks in the mirrors to express that after Auschwitz, the heavens will forever be violated.
Jewish monuments in Holland have been vandalized, though infrequently, in the past. However, the desecration of the Auschwitz memorial was unprecedented because of its prominence and connection to the annual remembrance day.
In a related matter, the Dutch government announced it would contribute $250,000 for restoration activities at Auschwitz.
The Dutch Cabinet said it was making the donation because it felt the Polish State Museum at Auschwitz should serve as a reminder of the horrors of racism.
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