Ottawa police launch hate crime probe after Holocaust memorial defaced
OTTAWA – The Ottawa Police Service has launched a hate crime investigation after the National Holocaust Monument was defaced just days after the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
In an interview late Wednesday, Deputy Chief Uday Jaswal said the National Capital Commission notified police that the monument had been pelted with eggs. The incident was reported around 4 p.m.
“We engaged our hate crime response with respect to that incident,” Jaswal said. “It’s incredibly offensive.”
In a statement on Twitter, Chief Peter Sloly said the incident is “completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
“Incidents such as this are deeply disturbing to many communities especially when they target specific groups,” he said.
Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada, thanked the Ottawa police for investigating the incident as a hate crime.
“Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, it is morally repulsive that Jews are still targeted by anti-semites,” Mostyn said late Wednesday.
On Monday, Holocaust survivors gathered at Auschwitzbirkenau to mark 75 years since the liberation of the notorious Nazi death camp. The commemoration included dignitaries and officials from more than 50 countries, along with 200 camp survivors.
About 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz-birkenau during the Second World in what was then Nazi-occupied southern Poland.
Mina Cohn, director of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship at Carleton University’s Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies, learned of the incident while in the United States.
“I was horrified to learn that someone defaced the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa — clearly an act of hatred,” she said. “I hope the Ottawa police find the suspect.”
Earlier this month, the Ottawa police announced it was reinstating its hate crimes section while adding two investigators to its security intelligence section to address safety concerns among communities targeted by hate crime.
Ottawa police received 110 hate crime reports in 2109, up from 95 in 2017.
The National Holocaust Monument was inaugurated in September 2017. The starshaped monument stands at the northeast corner of Booth and Wellington streets, across from the Canadian War Museum.