Mural on remnants of Berlin Wall hit with anti-Semitic graffiti

BERLIN (JTA) — A famous mural on remnants of the Berlin Wall was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti.

The attack comes during a week when several thousand Jewish visitors are participating in the first-ever European Maccabi Games to be held in Germany.

Police quickly covered the graffiti with a scaffold after the vandalism was spotted on Friday, and the artist restored his work on Sunday, according to German news reports.

The mural, which features an Israeli flag superimposed on a German one, was painted in 1988 as a reminder of the 40th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom in Nazi Germany.

The artist, Gunther Schaefer, most recently restored the outdoor artwork last March. It reportedly has been defaced at least 51 times over the years — usually by neo-Nazis, extreme left-wingers, racists and Islamic extremists, but also by apolitical vandals, the artist told reporters. He has
documented many of the defacements on his website.

Schaefer said in a Facebook post that the police reaction — to secure the mural with chain and lock — took him by surprise. He invited followers to join him on Sunday and help touch up his mural.

The German media have speculated that the incident is related to the visit to Berlin by some 3,000 Jews from around the world — athletes and spectators — for the 14th European Maccabi Games.

According to an online report by the rbb broadcasting company, a group of young Jews was subjected to a verbal anti-Semitic attack near one of the sports venues, and in another incident police arrested a man of Arab background who hurled anti-Semitic insults at two guards outside the hotel where most of the athletes are staying. Security, which already was heavy, was further tightened, rbb reported.