An Italian mural depicting a teary-eyed Anne Frank holding an Israeli flag was vandalized to remove the Holocaust victim and paint over her the words “Free Gaza.”
The street art in Milan’s Piazza Castello was put up by contemporary artist AleXsandro Polombo to mark one month since Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israeli civilians.
It depicted the Holocaust icon alongside a girl in a traditional keffiyeh burning the terrorist organization’s flag.
The work was part of Polombo’s “Innocence, Hate and Hope” project, which Israeli art historian Batya Brutin called an “important warning message to the world.”
Another mural included in the project showed the well-known boy from the Warsaw ghetto with his hands up, being taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.
That mural was also vandalized: the boy was removed from the image so that it only showed the terrorist soldier and a child soldier from Gaza.
Polombo has since spoken out about his work being defaced.
Street art in Milan’s Piazza Castello was placed by contemporary artist AleXsandro Polombo to mark one month since Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israeli civilians.Getty Images
“The gesture of these anti-Semitic racists is to erase memory to impose their terrorist thinking, but these cowardly actions do not intimidate me, and I will continue to defend the freedom of expression of our democracy, and with my art I will respond to the terror to which they want to drag us,” he said. , according to the Jewish Chronicle.
“However, this vandalism only reinforces the meaning of the works and forces us to respond even stronger because it highlights all the anger and social danger of this hateful anti-Semitic machine that is in motion.”
The artist maintained that acts of vandalism “are manifestations of terrorist thinking that undermines the freedom of all of us.
A mural in Milan showed a teary-eyed Anne Frank waving an Israeli flag alongside a Palestinian girl burning the Hamas flag.@aleXsandroPalombo
“If politics and institutions do not respond strongly to anti-Semitic violence, then we will all lose: legitimizing these gestures means also legitimizing terrorist thinking in our society. And that is what Hamas propaganda wants,” he continued.
Hamas’s “anti-Semitic fury” is “overwhelming Jews everywhere; “This horror that resurfaces from the past should make us all reflect because it undermines the freedom, security and future of all,” Palomo added.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini responded that it was a “pity” that the murals were defaced.
“These actions have no place in our society,” he said in a statement, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“We must unite against hate.”
We are saddened and disgusted by the anti-Semitic vandalism that defaced the monument in Copenhagen honoring the heroic efforts to save Danish Jews from the Nazis.
This type of hate cannot be tolerated in today’s society. pic.twitter.com/q0lUp1ZlOC
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) November 11, 2023
The vandalism of the murals came just weeks after a Star of David appeared on a central building in Rome.
Meanwhile, in Denmark, a Holocaust memorial rock honoring Danish citizens who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Nazi occupation was defaced with graffiti, and the steps of a nearby amphitheater were defaced with the Palestinian flag. and the words “Free.” Loop”.
“We are saddened and disgusted by the anti-Semitic vandalism that defaced the monument in Copenhagen honoring the heroic efforts to save Danish Jews from the Nazis,” the European Jewish Congress said. posted on X earlier this month.
“This type of hate cannot be tolerated in today’s society,” he said.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn