In Amsterdam, Anne Frank statue vandalized with ‘Free Gaza’ graffiti

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A statue of Anne Frank, famous for her diary account of hiding from the Nazis during World War II, has been covered with pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel graffiti, AFP learns.

According to images published on X, the base of the statue was spray-painted with the slogan “Free Gaza,” while the girl’s hands were painted with the same blood-red color.

Police opened an investigation into the most recent defacement, which likely occurred at night from Saturday to Sunday, an Amsterdam police spokesman tells AFP, adding that no suspect had yet been identified.

Anne Frank, who died aged 16 in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, is an icon of the Dutch Jewish community.

Her diary has become one of the most influential accounts of the Holocaust, which wiped out around three-quarters of the country’s 140,000 Jews during the Nazi German occupation.

The Amsterdam house where the Frank family took refuge for two years before being captured by the Nazis in 1944 — after which they were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp — has become a museum dedicated to her story.

It is the second time in less than a month that the statue of one of the world’s most recognizable victims of the Holocaust has been targeted, according to television station AT5 and confirmed to AFP by the police source.

AT5 says that the statue in a southern Amsterdam park had been vandalized on July 9, after which the municipality called for increased protection of the site with video surveillance cameras and nighttime lighting.

Only a sick antisemitic freak would spray the word "Gaza" onto a statue of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl murdered by the Nazis.

I swear you are hurting the Palestinian cause with this behaviour!! We will not get a state by intimidating Jews!! We will get a state by making peace. pic.twitter.com/P7wCtorlOL

— John Aziz (@aziz0nomics) July 9, 2024

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.