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Jewish groups speak out over incident at Holocaust memorial in Boston
"...any disruptive activity at this site is of concern to the Boston Jewish community, and should concern the entire New England community."
Jewish groups around Greater Boston are voicing concern after a video shared on social media over the weekend appeared to show a group of young men leaning against and kicking the New England Holocaust Memorial.
The incident reportedly happened on Friday night, according to watchdog organization StopAntisemitism, which shared the clip on Twitter. The organization claimed that the young men shown in the video also made antisemitic threats against an onlooker when they noticed they were being filmed, though the brief clip does not include the alleged confrontation.
Located downtown off of Union Street, the memorial features six glass towers etched with millions of numbers to represent those tattooed on the arms of concentration camp prisoners.
“The New England Holocaust Memorial is a sacred site in Boston, a way we bear witness to the memories of those who suffered or died at the hands of the Nazis,” Peggy Shukur, interim regional director for the Anti-Defamation League New England, told Boston.com in a statement.
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She added: “At a moment where surveys show that 63% of [young] Americans did not know that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and of heightened antisemitism in Boston and nationally, any disruptive activity at this site is of concern to the Boston Jewish community, and should concern the entire New England community.”
Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) and the Jewish Community Relations Council shared a similar sentiment in a joint statement on Twitter.
“We will not stand for any acts of antisemitism in our community, especially not the desecration of memories of the victims of the Holocaust, and will continue to monitor the situation,” the groups wrote, asking witnesses or anyone with information to contact Boston police.
The Boston Police Department provided Boston.com with a copy of its report, which noted no visible damage to the memorial and indicated that the incident is a suspected hate crime.
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The memorial has been targeted before, with vandals notably smashing glass panels at the site on two separate occasions during the summer of 2017.
“This is a memorial built to commemorate Holocaust victims and honor survivors, and to inspire reflection on one of the most tragic events in modern history,” Boston City Council President Ed Flynn said in a statement posted to Twitter. “Any act to damage or desecrate this memorial is unacceptable.”
It is critical, he said, to “categorically reject and denounce any attempts to normalize antisemitism or any form of hate.”
“While we continue to stand with our Jewish neighbors now, and always, we must educate and remind our children about the horrors of the past so that history does not repeat itself,” Flynn said. “We must make clear to all neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups that they are not welcome and will never represent our values.”
