Ten Jewish tombstones smashed in Romanian capital

An anti-Semitism organization said Tuesday that vandals smashed 10 tombstones at a cemetery in the Romanian capital in “a premeditated act.”

The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania said the tombstones were broken into pieces at the Jewish cemetery in southern Bucharest overnight Monday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, when the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis are commemorated in Israel.

The center called for an investigation and for the perpetrators to face justice.

Romania deported 150,000 Jews and 25,000 Roma to concentration camps in an area of the Soviet Union controlled by the Axis powers from 1942 to 1944, when the country was run by pro-Nazi dictator Ion Antonescu.

After communism ended, many denied or downplayed Romania’s role in the Holocaust.

An estimated 6,000 Jews live in Romania today.

Shocking: Lots of tombstones at #Bucharest #romania Giurgiului's Jewish cemetery toppled and smashed. pic.twitter.com/pS561j3NC4

— Admas Kodesh (@AdmasKodesh) April 25, 2017

Last month, a monument commemorating the Holocaust in the Greek municipality of Kavala was smashed one year after its unveiling in memory of 1,484 locals who were murdered, the Ekathimerini daily reported. The perpetrators used a hammer to smash the marble façade, which is emblazoned with a Star of David, according to the report.

Forty of the 50 headstones at an 18th-century Jewish cemetery in France were found smashed or toppled at the same time, although authorities told France3 that there was no indication yet that the act was a hate crime.

Jewish cemeteries in the US were also vandalized earlier this year.