Anne Frank statue defaced with ‘Gaza’ graffiti, sparking anger among Dutch politicians
- Dutch politicians call on witnesses to come forward
The statue of Jewish Holocaust victim Anne Frank has been defaced with ‘Gaza’ graffiti. Dutch politicians are voicing their disapproval of the act.
The Anne Frank monument on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam, near the Jewish diarist’s first home in the Netherlands, was defaced with red paint bearing the letters ‘Gaza’.
Amsterdam councillor Stijn Nijssen condemned the vandalism via X, formerly Twitter. He wrote: ‘It is truly scandalous that someone would come up with the idea of drawing attention to the Palestinian cause by defacing an image of Anne Frank, an international symbol of the Holocaust’.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the act an “incredible disgrace” on Instagram.
“This young girl, so brutally murdered by the Nazis at the age of 15, reminds us and our city every day of humanity and kindness in the most difficult circumstances,” she said.
The statue of Holocaust victim Anne Frank in Amsterdam has been defaced with ‘Gaza’ graffiti, sparking outrage among Dutch politicians
Pictured: Anne Frank, who hid from the Nazis in hidden rooms behind a bookcase in Amsterdam but was subsequently captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp, where she later died. Her statue in the Dutch capital was defaced on Tuesday. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the act an “incredible disgrace”
“How can you find it in your heart to desecrate her memory so violently? Whoever it was, shame on you! Not a single Palestinian has been helped by defacing her precious image,” Halsema added.
She also called on possible witnesses to report the incident.
The smaller bronze statue, set on a high, rectangular base of red granite, honors Anne Frank and also commemorates her 13,000 Jewish neighbors who perished in the Holocaust.
The statue was designed by Jet Schepp and unveiled in July 2009.
The destruction of the statue of Anne Frank comes amid rising tensions surrounding the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The vandalism in the Dutch capital is reminiscent of the activists who destroyed the statue of London-born Jewish singer Amy Winehouse in Camden Town by placing a sticker with the Palestinian flag on the late musician’s Star of David.
Anne Frank was a Jewish girl from Germany who was known for her diary in which she recorded her life as a woman in hiding during the Nazi persecution in the Netherlands.
Anne Frank lived with her older sister and parents in an apartment near Merwedeplein, where the statue stands, after they moved from Nazi Germany to the Dutch capital in 1938.
Four years later, however, when the persecution of the Jews escalated, the Frank family had to go into hiding. They lived in hidden rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne’s father, Otto Frank, worked.
The family was discovered by the Gestapo in 1944 and sent to concentration camps. Anne and her sister Margot were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died. Otto was the only survivor of the Holocaust in the Frank family.
Anne Frank was a German Jew who emigrated to the Netherlands with her family during the Nazi era. Separated from the rest of her family, she and her sister died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The image shows a 12-year-old Anne doing her homework in 1941
Otto Frank, the father of the late Anne Frank, is pictured showing Queen Juliana of the Netherlands the Frank family’s hiding place during World War II. The Queen visited the Anna Frank House in Amsterdam to mark the 50th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birth