The statue in memory of Anne Frank, one of the most famous victims of Holocaustwas defaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti for the second time on Sunday.
The statue is located on Merwedeplein, near Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam.
According to pictures published on X, the statue’s base was spray-painted with the slogan “Free Gaza” while the girl’s hands were painted with the same red color, AFP reported.
The police have launched a preliminary investigation into the latest crime, which probably occurred during the night between Saturday and Sunday. An Amsterdam police spokesman told AFP that no suspect had yet been identified.
Frank, who died aged 16 in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, is an icon of the Dutch Jewish community. Her diary has become one of the most influential accounts of the Holocaust, which wiped out about three-quarters of the country’s 140,000 Jews during Nazi German occupation.
The house in Amsterdam where the Frank family took refuge for two years before being captured by the Nazis in 1944 – after which they were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp – has become a museum dedicated to her story.
On Sunday, it is 80 years since the Nazis arrested her family on August 4, 1944.
It is the second time in less than a month that the statue of one of the world’s most famous victims of the Holocaust has been targeted, according to The TV station AT5 and confirmed to AFP by the police source.
AT5 said the statue in a park in southern Amsterdam was vandalized on July 9, after which the municipality called for increased protection of the site with video surveillance cameras and night lighting.
Anti-Semitic incidents have increased worldwide since the start of Israel’s war with Palestinian militants in the country The Gaza Strip triggered by Hamas attacks on 7 October.
The October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians. Israel’s campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,580 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, which did not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.