Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta tweeted an image of the recovered statue. (Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta/Twitter)

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — The Anne Frank statue stolen in Buenos Aires was recovered less than a day after the robbery, Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta announced on Friday night.

Police found the statue, a replica of one in Amsterdam, in a squatter shanty town near the center of the city.

Rodriguez Larreta said that he and Roel Nieuwenkamp, the Netherlands’ ambassador to Argentina, will soon rededicate the statue together in a ceremony.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“This piece symbolizes the memory of the Holocaust and the union between our countries, as well as the respect for human rights,” he said. “I have already communicated with the ambassador to give him the news of the recovery and I deeply regret that the event has occurred. As soon as a team of professionals has reviewed the state of the sculpture, we will together reinstate it.”

The city’s Anne Frank House museum spread the news.

“We are happy to communicate that the statue that had been stolen was found. The episode allows us to reflect on the value of some symbols, and gives us strength to continue working on the construction of memory and human rights,” the museum’s Twitter account wrote.

The bronze statue was inaugurated in 2014 in the Kingdom of Netherlands Square in Buenos Aires’ Puerto Madero district, a popular tourist area. Anne Frank and her family hid for a time from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II.

Several bronze and other metal statues have been stolen throughout the city in recent years, by what some have called a “bronze mafia.” The largest Jewish cemetery in the wider Buenos Aires province has been robbed repeatedly since last year. Local Jewish leaders had said the Anne Frank statue robbery was not motivated by antisemitism.

In addition to the statue and the Anne Frank House, which was inaugurated in 2009, Buenos Aires has a Holocaust Museum that was inagurated in 2002 and rededicated in 2019 after renovations.

—
The post Stolen Anne Frank statue recovered in Buenos Aires, will get rededication ceremony appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount