The walls of the Oregon Holocaust Memorial in Southwest Portland were tagged with swastika symbols and other antisemitic messages this weekend.
The graffiti has since been removed, but Oregon Jewish Museum Director Judy Margles said defacing the memorial is an act of “symbolic violence.”
“To use Nazi symbols to deface a memorial dedicated to the millions who were murdered during the holocaust re-capitulates the hatred that drove the original genocide,” she wrote in an emailed statement to KOIN 6 News. “It is an act of symbolic violence against the very idea that inspired the memorial.”
Marc Blattner, President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland said, “Alongside this narrative of achievement and opportunity, there is also a history — far older than the Nation itself — of racism, bigotry, and other forms of injustice. This includes the scourge of anti-Semitism. In recent years, Jewish Americans have increasingly been the target of white nationalism and the anti-Semitic violence it fuels.”
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call police.