Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial Vandalized
‘Jude Raus’ graffitied on monument honoring Mordechai Anielewicz
June 21, 2013
Obelisk at the foot of Anielewicz's Mound at 18 Miła Street in Warsaw.(Wikimedia)
The entrance to the Anielewicz Mound, one of several memorials to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising throughout the city, has been vandalized with the words ‘Jude Raus,’ meaning ‘Jews Out,’ JTA reports.
The monument honors Mordechai Anielewicz—for whom a nearby street is also named—the commander of the uprising. The memorial is located by Mila 18, the headquarters for resistance forces.
I was in Warsaw in April, along with several other Tablet staffers, where we attended the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Throughout the week of ceremonies, Polish volunteers handed out yellow paper daffodils to people attending the events, a tribute to Marek Edelman, another commander who would place daffodils on the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes each year on the anniversary of the uprising, until his death in 2009. By Saturday all you could see while walking the streets of Warsaw was everyone, everywhere, wearing what looked like yellow stars on their lapels.
It’s unfortunate that a senseless act of vandalism can cast a pall over what had so recently been a beautiful city-wide remembrance.
Memorial to Warsaw Ghetto uprising is vandalized [JTA]
Related: Our Lost Warsaw Ghetto Diary [Tablet Magazine]
Previous: Remembering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.
