Philadelphia video captures Holocaust Memorial Plaza being defaced with swastika

A vandal was caught on camera drawing a green swastika on a wall at the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, and police are looking for him.

Police are investigating what the memorial called on Facebook a hate crime. 

The memorial called it “a disgusting act of antisemitism that comes amid a staggering spike in anti-Jewish hatred across Philadelphia and the country more broadly.”

Police responded to the vandalism scene around 2:21 p.m. Sunday, FOX 29 Philadelphia reports. 

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“The incident happened overnight around 1:30 a.m.,” Eszter Kutas, director of the Holocaust Remembrance Foundation, told WPVI-TV. “A single individual approached the site with spray paint in his hand and very quickly put a two-by-two swastika on our site. We are the oldest Holocaust memorial in the United States, so obviously this incident is very upsetting to us.”

The memorial plaza at 16th and Arch streets was built in 1964, CBS News Philadelphia states. 

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“This reprehensible act not only desecrates a symbol of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust but also highlights the disturbing rise in antisemitism plaguing our community,” Anti-Defamation League Philadelphia Regional Director Andrew Goretsky said in a statement on the social media platform X. “We must unite against such hatred, reaffirm out commitment to tolerance, and work collectively to eradicate bigotry.”

A suspect has not yet been identified, but police described him as wearing a black mask and a dark jacket, possibly brown, with a stripe across the chest and down the arms. 

Anyone with information on the vandalism is asked to contact the authorities.