A monument erected in Vidin, Bulgaria has been defaced, with the words “Allah”, “Palestine”, “Hamas” and the Islamic star and crescent moon symbol spray painted on it.

The Shalom Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria reported the vandalism in a Facebook post on Monday, August 21.

The monument was erected in 2003 by Jews in Bulgaria to thank the town of Vidin for preventing their deportation to Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Shalom quoted the mayor of Vidin, Ognyan Tsenkov, as describing the vandalism as “outrageous and unacceptable”. Tsenkov took immediate action to have the monument cleaned.

Shalom Organization President Alexander Oscar in a letter to the mayor thanked him for his firm statement and quick action, and stressed that the monument “will continue to be a symbol of the brotherhood and a long history between our two peoples,” the post also said.

In 1943, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, some politicians and many members of civil society were successful in standing up to the Nazis and preventing the country’s Jews from being deported to death camps, the Sofia Globe reported.

Next year will mark the 75 anniversary of Bulgarian opposition to the deportation of the the country’s 50,000 Jews.

Despite that success, more than 11,000 Jews from parts of northern Greece and Yugoslavia, territories which were under Bulgarian administration during World War II, were deported and killed.

(Nat Golden – YWN)