“When you desecrate the Holocaust monument, it causes tremendous pain for the community,” Lawrence Greenspon, volunteer co-chair of the National Holocaust Monument Committee, told JNS.

By Dave Gordon, JNS

Ottawa’s National Holocaust Monument was vandalized on Monday morning, and painted red with “feed me,” per images of the memorial that JNS viewed.

“Sadly these days, we continue to see this hate,” Adam Silver, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, told JNS. “It’s not unexpected, I guess, but it’s certainly still jarring to see.”

Silver told JNS that he refers to the monument being “desecrated” rather than “defaced.”

“It’s supposed to be a beacon of education and tolerance, and to honor the memories of all the victims,” he said. He told JNS that city crews were scrubbing the graffiti on Monday morning.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, told JNS that “since Oct. 7, Canada’s Jewish community has been under siege.”

“Too often, we’re told this isn’t about Jews. It’s about Israel. But this? This doesn’t feel like it’s about Israel,” CIJA said.

Silver told JNS that authorities told him that there are cameras around the monument and the surrounding area, which makes it easier to find vandals.

“City leadership are committed to identifying the perpetrators and holding them accountable as best they can,” he said. “We know that there are all kinds of attempts from haters to intimidate and create fear.”

JNS asked Silver about what “feed me” might refer to.

“I guess they’ve connected it to the allegations of withholding of food in Gaza,” he said. “That’s sort of implied.”

Yad Vashem said the attack is the “latest in a series of appalling acts of vandalism against Jewish and Holocaust-related sites worldwide.”

“Holocaust memorials serve as solemn reminders of the unparalleled horrors perpetrated during one of the darkest chapters in human history and are a stark reminder of the dangers of unchecked antisemitism,” the Israeli memorial institution stated.

“Yad Vashem calls on authorities in Canada to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” it stated. “Beyond that, we urge the country’s leadership to do more to counter the root of the problem: hatred and antisemitism.”

Michael Levitt, the president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Toronto, stated that “this wasn’t just an act of hateful vandalism.”

“It was a direct assault on the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and a slap in the face to survivors and their families,” stated Levitt, a former parliamentarian for York Centre, in Toronto, a riding with a large Jewish population.

“Every member of Parliament in the House of Commons today should ask themselves: What will I do about this? Because as much as our community welcomes expressions of sympathy, statements alone won’t stop the hate we’re facing,” he said.

“It’s time for actions that will send an unmistakable message to those who are perpetrating hate on our streets and in our communities: Every time you target Jews, you will achieve the opposite of your goal,” he added. “You won’t scare us. You won’t infect others with your hate. But what you will do is provoke the full force of Canadians fighting back.”

Lawrence Greenspon, 71, whose paternal grandparents and whose aunt were killed in Auschwitz and whose father was liberated from Dachau by the Americans, is a volunteer co-chair of the National Holocaust Monument Committee.

“When you desecrate the Holocaust monument, it causes tremendous pain for the community and it’s also very personal for me,” Greenspon told JNS.

“I never expected that my daughter would ever be exposed to this sort of antisemitism,” he said. “It’s almost to the point of daily. When we had these events at the monument, it was a question of ‘What if?’ Until today, nothing like that has happened.”

“The important thing to come across is we’ve heard from our political leaders that this is ‘unacceptable’ and this should not be happening in Canada,” he told JNS. “It’s very little comfort. It’s time for action.”

“Our prime minister has to, first of all, stop blaming Israel for the war, because it becomes the justification for these acts of hatred,” he said.

Mark Sutcliffe, the Ottawa mayor, stated that the attack on a “solemn and sacred place” is “shocking and disturbing,” and Melissa Lantsman, a Conservative member of Parliament who is Jewish, called it a “disgusting and cowardly act.”

“Parliament is just steps away. That’s where dissent belongs,” she wrote. “Defacing sacred ground in honour of the millions of victims of the Holocaust in the middle of the night with spray paint isn’t protest. It’s vandalism. Someone this pathetic deserves to be identified and held accountable.”

At the intersection of Wellington and Booth Streets in Ottawa, the National Holocaust Monument is a solemn tribute to the six million Jewish men, women and children and millions of others whom the Nazis and its collaborators murdered during the Holocaust.

Justin Trudeau, then the prime minister, opened the site officially on Sept. 27, 2017. The monument—designed by the Polish-American and Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind—is the largest commemorative structure built in the capital in more than 70 years.

It is composed of six towering triangular concrete segments that, when viewed from above, form the points of a star—a direct reference to the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

Large-scale monochromatic murals by photographer Edward Burtynsky line the concrete walls, depicting present-day images of Holocaust sites, such as death camps and killing fields.