Jewish headstones daubed with swastikas
Cemetery in Slovakian town of Hummene targeted. Almost all the area's Jews were massacred by the Nazis
Slovak police are investigating after headstones were vandalised at a Jewish cemetery in a town which was devastated in the Holocaust.
Swastikas were found sprayed on two headstones at the cemetery in Humenne in the far east. The cemetery is looked after voluntarily by one of Humenne’s eight remaining Jews, Juraj Levicky.
Levicky said he was “horrified” by the vandalism, which he reported to the police.
It is unclear how the culprit got into the grounds, which are locked and surrounded by a 6.5ft concrete wall. The graffiti was discovered by British journalist, Raffi Berg, who was visiting Humenne as part of research for a book.
“I was climbing up the cemetery hill when I spotted the swastikas – one on the front of a headstone, the other on the back of another. I was shocked and angry. The cemetery is remote and whoever did this actually made the effort to get there. The graffiti was not weathered, suggesting it was done quite recently.
“Slovakian Jews suffered horrifically in the Holocaust, and almost all Humenne’s Jews were murdered. This is not just vandalism, it is a desecration of the dead and I hope the perpetrator is brought to justice.”
Levicky – whose grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust but parents survived the camps – said ordinary people have expressed disgust at the daubings.
Karen Pollock, chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: This is a sickening act of antisemitic hatred and desecration. The sight of swastikas on Jewish gravestones in a town whose Jewish population was decimated by the Holocaust is chilling. It is a stark reminder that antisemitism is not a relic of the past but a persistent threat that must be confronted. This hatred cannot be ignored – those responsible must be held to account, and we must all stand firm against it.”
Before the war, there were just over 2,000 Jews in Humenne, accounting for about a third of the town’s population. In March 1942, young Jewish women and girls from Humenne were rounded up and sent on the first deportation to Auschwitz.
The rest of the Jews were expelled over time and deported to the camps. Only a handful survived.
The cemetery contains about 1,000 graves, dating back to the 18th century, according to the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF).
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