Wrocław – Five hooligans tried to destroy the Hanukkah menorah standing on the street. Oławska in Wroclaw – announced Jacek Sutryk, mayor of the city, on social media. “I believed until the end that no one would want to “keep up” with MP Braun and his fire extinguisher from a few days ago in the Polish Parliament or would even think about it. However, I was wrong,” he said in the post. The moment of the incident was captured by surveillance cameras.
The city’s mayor said the incident occurred on Thursday evening. Jacek Sutryk reported that five masked gunmen climbed onto the candle structure, pulled out the Israeli flag and set it on fire. “Then two of them overturned the structure of the nine-armed candlestick, and then they all fled towards Świdnicka Street,” the president said.
He emphasized that “there is no place for racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and other wild and hooligan behavior in Wroclaw”:
“We have been condemning this attitude for years,” emphasized the president.
On Friday afternoon, the spokeswoman for the Wroclaw District Public Prosecutor’s Office, prosecutor Anna Placzek-Grzelak, said that the Wroclaw public prosecutor’s office had initiated an ex officio investigation into the destruction of the Hanukkah menorah.
The subject of the investigation is the public insult of an object of religious worship and the incitement of hatred based on religious and national differences.
– Currently the investigation is ongoing and evidence is being collected – added prosecutor Placzek-Grzelak.
We have obtained surveillance video that captures the moment of the incident. The video shows that several men first pulled out the Israeli flag and set it on fire. Then two men knocked over the Hanukkah menorah. The perpetrators fled after a while.
A moment later – as we can see in the recording – several passersby approached the lying Hanukkah menorah and picked it up.
Jacek Sutryk pointed out that the perpetrators were already being sought and that the police had received surveillance footage. “We will search with all determination for the perpetrators of this brutal crime,” he said.
Junior candidate Rafał Jarząb from the city police headquarters in Wrocław said that the police are looking into this case. He confirms that there were several perpetrators. Her intentions are currently unknown. The police operation continues. No one has been arrested so far.
The event in Wroclaw was commented on by Mark Brzezinski, US Ambassador to Poland.
“I join Consul General Erin Nickerson and Wroclaw President Jacek Sutryk in condemning this act of anti-Semitic hatred,” Mark Brzezinski wrote on social media.
– I am ashamed and outraged by this shameful act of banditry, because that is how one should describe an attack on religious feelings. We know the source of this action, the recent events in the Sejm and the banditry action of Deputy Braun, which – I hope – will be appropriately punished – said Jacek Sutryk, Mayor of Wroclaw, during a press conference.
He announced that he would soon send a letter to the prosecutor’s office alerting him to a possible crime of inciting religious hatred.
Wroclaw’s mayor said that next week the city, together with the Jewish community, will make a “symbolic gesture” that “will show that in Wroclaw there is no consent for this type of bandit activity and the city is open and tolerant.” ”
– This situation did not surprise me, because for many years such things happened almost every day. In Krakow there was talk of Jews being burned with gas. “The destruction of Hanukkah is the least of my problems, calling for the murder of Jews is even worse,” says Klara Kołodziejska-Połtyn, chairwoman of the Jewish Religious Communities in the Republic of Poland.
