Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit condemned this week’s attack against a Berlin Jewish cemetery, leaving at least 20 gravestones damaged as Israel prepares to observe Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday.

Wowereit called on residents of his city and the country to reject anti-Semitism and racism, calling on police to apprehend those responsible for the attack.

The attack, which occurred on Monday (April 28) in the cemetery in Berlin’s Weissensee district, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe, is being labeled a “politically motivated” attack by police.

Most of the cemetery’s 115,000 graves predate World War II. Berlin’s Jewish community has been seeking government assistance in refurbishing the cemetery, explaining many of the tombstones are actually crumbling.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)