Unknown vandals desecrated Holocaust ‘’memorial cobblestones’’ in Brussels fixed to the pavement outside the former home of a Jewish family whose members were deported and murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz.
An agency which broadcasts news on the Jewish community in Belgium reported the cobbelstones bearing the names of the members of the Kichka family were coverred with red concrete. The family was arrested in 1942, held in the Mechelen transit camp before being deported to Auschwitz.
Henri Kichka, the only survivor of the family, expressed ‘’deep shock’’ at the attack perpetrated against the memory of his parents and sisters.
The Association for the Memory of the Shoah, which coordinates the development of the urban monument, denounced the anti-Semitic dimension of the desecration and called on local authorities ‘’ to take any initiative to restore the monument and to prevent further aggression ''.
on memorial plaques outside the homes of Holocaust victims in Munich may be on the verge of being overturned.
The so-called ‘’solpersteine’’ or "stumbling stones were initiated in 1996 by a German sculptor, Gunter Demnig. They are placed in front of houses in which lived victims of the Holocaust and are aimed at making passers-by aware of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime and its accomplices.
There are today 50,000 stumbling stones in more than 1,000 cities from France to Russia, prompting claims it is the largest memorial in the world.
The desecration in Brussels occurred on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.