A Warsaw memorial recognizing the more than 300,000 souls who died at the Nazis’ Treblinka extermination camp was defaced with graffiti equating the Holocaust with the war in Gaza.
The Umschlagplatz monument is only the latest Holocaust memorial to recently be defaced in the Polish capital.
Red graffiti was discovered last week sprayed on its walls reading, “Warsaw 1943 = Gaza 2025,” local TVN 24 reported.
The Umschlagplatz monument was vandalized with a message that reads, “Warsaw 1943 = Gaza 2025.” tvnwarszawa.pl
The Umschlagplatz memorializes the more than 300,000 people who were sent from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp by the Nazis. Getty ImagesThe Umschlagplatz stands along the now-defunct railway that was used by the Nazis from 1942 to 1943 to transport Jews and others from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.
The site is now a memorial to the victims of Holocaust, with the names of those forced into the Warsaw Ghetto engraved on its walls.
“Shameful vandalism at Warsaw’s memorial for 300,000 (!) Jews deported to Treblinka,” Yacov Livne, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, wrote on X on Tuesday.
“Poland has a special responsibility to protect Jewish & Holocaust sites,” he added.
Local police said they received reports about the vandalism Jan. 3 from a representative of the Polin Museum, but an arrest has yet to be made.
The Umschlagplatz is only the latest Holocaust memorial to be vandalized in Warsaw since the war in Gaza began Oct. 7, 2023.
The now-defunct railway site features the names of the Warsaw Ghetto victims. SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Nazi soldiers gathered Poland’s Jews and others into the Warsaw Ghetto to send them off to the extermination camp. Getty ImagesIn November, the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, which lies just outside the Polin museum, was also vandalized with red paint.
