A Holocaust Memorial was defaced in the Greek capital Athens with graffiti threatening the Jewish community.
The monument, erected in 2010, commemorates the 80,000 Greek Jews who were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. It is located near the Beit Shalom synagogue and the Jewish community's offices.
The graffiti included a purported quote from the Talmud, saying Jews who convert should be put to death, and threats that the synagogue in Athens would be destroyed.
“Regretfully, 70 years after the end of WWII, which left millions of victims of bigotry, racism, Nazism and anti-Semitism behind, there are people beyond redemption aiming at terrorizing us by molesting the memory of our brothers, victims of the Holocaust,” said a statement of the Jewish community.
“They will not succeed in intimidating us,” the statement said.
The president of the Central Board of the Jewish Communities in Greece, Benjamin Albalas, condemned the vandalism as shameful. He noted that Greek police rushed to investigate the incident.
The incident comes several weeks after vandals desecrated the Jewish cemetery in the northern city of Thessaloniki (Salonika).
Earlier this year, the New York-based Anti-Defamation League published a survey showing that Greece has Europe’s highest rate of anti-Semitic attitudes, with 69 percent of Greeks espousing anti-Semitic views.