Holocaust Memorial Vandalized In Uruguay
The Holocaust memorial in Montevideo, Uruguay. Image by Wikimedia
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A Uruguayan Holocaust memorial rededicated last year was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti minimizing the Holocaust.
“They have vandalized us again. What’s going on?” Montevideo Mayor Carlos Varela tweeted along with photos of the vandalized memorial. “We call for sanity, tolerance and peace,” he added.
Unveiled in 1994, the site in the country’s capital Montevideo has been hit several times in recent years by anti-Semitic vandalism, but this time has been the most severe with the graffiti taking up a larger area of the memorial, reported El Pais.
Vandals used black paint to write slurs including “The Holocaust of the Jewish people is the biggest lie in history,” “Only 300,000 Jews died from typhus” and “Gas chambers were a fraud.”
In 2016, the Israelite Central Committee, the country’s umbrella Jewish organization, funded the latest restoration, which included lights and staircases.
Uruguay is home to some 12,000 Jews, according to the Latin American Jewish Congress. It was the first country in South America to officially recognize Israel.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
