Auschwitz Ashes Desecrated: Wiesenthal Center “Outraged, Disgusted And Alarmed” Over Attack On Brussels Holocaust Monument

July 27, 2006

AUSCHWITZ ASHES DESECRATED: WIESENTHAL CENTER “OUTRAGED, DISGUSTED AND ALARMED” OVER ATTACK ON BRUSSELS  HOLOCAUST MONUMENT

The Simon Wiesenthal Center today condemned the vandalism of a Holocaust memorial in the city of Brussels and called on the Belgian government to publicly condemn the crime. On the evening of July 24^th, vandals of the “Brussels National Monument to the Jewish Martyrs of Belgium,” which bears the names of 25,411 Belgian Jews deported to Nazi death camps, emptied an urn that contained ashes from Auschwitz, broke windows, and spread excrement and condoms.

In a letter to Franciskus van Daele, Belgium’s Ambassador to the U.S., Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, expressed outrage and alarm at the vandalism and pointed out that Belgian leaders, both local and national, had yet to protest the hate crime.

A meeting is scheduled between the Brussels Jewish community and Belgium officials and Cooper hoped that it would “intensify efforts to identify and capture the perpetrators of this serious attack and that it will lead to a public condemnation by your Prime Minister.”

“To do anything less would further desecrate the memory of your fellow citizens who perished in the Nazi Holocaust and further embolden the antisemitic extremists in your country,” Rabbi Cooper concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS and the Council of Europe.

For more information, contact the Center’s Public Relations department, 310-553-9036.