Lviv City officials release still of vandals damaging city's Holocaust memorial with neo-Nazi graffiti on June 21, 2017. (Courtesy Lviv City Hall)
City officials in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv published online security camera footage of vandals painting Nazi symbols on a Holocaust memorial in a bid to identify them.
The municipality made the unusual move last week on its website, in which it showed an image of an individual wearing a backpack and a hat squatting in front of a part of the Space of Synagogues memorial display.
The city inaugurated the display last year on part of the former Golden Rose Synagogue complex with support from some Jewish groups and despite opposition by others, who warned the space could invite vandalism and desecration because it resembles a park.
In the June 20 incident, several young men wrote neo-Nazi slogans on stone slabs meant to evoke headstones. They also drew a swastika and ultra-nationalist Ukrainian symbols, as well as the words “white power” in English.
Lviv City officials release image of city’s Holocaust memorial defaced with neo-Nazi graffiti on June 21, 2017. (Courtesy Lviv City Hall)
Mayor Andriy Sadovy in a statement called the incident “unacceptable” and made an unusual appeal “to the heads of the police and security services to find the perpetrators as soon as possible and punish them.” He also urged anyone with knowledge of the incident or the perpetrators’ identity to come forward.
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