28 July 2006
The Brussels Jewish Memorial for Holocaust victims has been vandalized, in an attack described as "devastating" by the head of a Belgian Jewish association. Judith Kronfeld, secretary-general of the Union of Deportees in Belgium – Sons and Daughters of Deportation, spoke of a “scene of devastation” which was discovered on Monday night. The gate of the Memorial’s crypt was pulled out, documents were destroyed, windows broken and an urn containing ashes from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp was desecrated and emptied. “Anti-Semitic vandals, moved by a destructive rage, left behind a scene of devastation,” Kronfeld said. Condoms and excrements were also found on the floor of another memorial located in Anderlecht, a Brussels district with a sizeable Arab population. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, who is currently on holiday, was said to be "shocked" by this attack.
