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Vandals wreck Holocaust memorial sites in North-West Russia and Estonia


Vandals have wrecked the Holocaust memorial site at “Golubaya Dacha” (The Blue House) in the Nevelski area of the Pskov province.

The vandalism was discovered on 28th August by Nevel resident, Natalia Gloshnovha. This was her first visit to the memorial site and she was shocked to find tombstones knocked over and most of the lilac bushes planted by school students, cut down. Members of a local social media group ‘Nevel – the best of the best’ agreed that the damage was malicious. There also appears to have been some swastikas painted in the area.

The site commemorates some 2,000 Jews from nearby villages who were rounded up by the Nazis into a ghetto and then murdered in September 1941.  In the post-war years, a Jewish cemetery was established at the memorial site, and in May this year an Avenue of the Righteous was added to commemorate those who had saved local Jews during WWII.

Another Holocaust memorial was vandalized in Kalevi-Liiva, Estonia. Swastikas were painted on the memorial board, which has information about the execution of 3000-6000 Jews murdered by the Nazis nearby.