A homeless man was caught on camera dumping mounds of trash at the foot of the nation’s oldest Holocaust memorial in Philadelphia — just days after a huge swastika was discovered spray-painted on a wall next to the site.
The most recent instance of vandalism targeting the Horowitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza in the heart of Philadelphia occurred around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, when a surveillance video captured a bearded man wearing a black beanie and carrying a backpack tossing piles of refuse from a garbage bin and a black trash bag on the snow-covered ground surrounding the memorial.
“It’s very upsetting to see another tide of hate,” Eszter Kutas, executive director of the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation, which manages the memorial, told NBC Philadelphia.
Kutas said the culprit behind the latest incident appears to be a homeless repeat offender.
“We may have seen this person before causing similar incidents at the Holocaust Memorial Plaza,” she said.
Less than three days earlier, on Sunday morning, a masked hatemonger was caught on video spray-painting a green swastika measuring 2 feet by 2 feet on a wall of the Verizon building that is adjacent to the Holocaust remembrance site on Arch Street.
The suspected vandal was described in a police press release as an “unknown male” who was last seen wearing a dark, possibly brown, jacket with a white stripe across the chest and down the arms.
Kutas said she does not believe the back-to-back criminal acts targeting the memorial are linked.
“I don’t see a direct connection between the two, unless we think about the larger…context in which we see rising antisemitism affecting the American community,” she said.
Both incidents are now being investigated by the Philadelphia Police Department.
The Philadelphia memorial, the oldest public Holocaust monument in the US, was first erected in 1964 and redesigned in 2018.
It bears the name of Holocaust survivor Sam Wasserman, the late grandfather of David Adelman, the billionaire co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Adelman announced on Instagram earlier this week that he was teaming up with the Citizens Crime Commission to offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the swastika vandalism.
“To know that a plaza, that was named for my grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, was vandalized with such hate, proves just how much these types of memorials and educational opportunities are needed and the compassion still lacking in our communities,” Adelman wrote.
“This is heartbreakingly one of many acts of antisemitism that is part of a staggering spike in anti-Jewish hatred in Philadelphia and across the country,” the businessman added.
According to the latest data from the Anti-Defamation League, domestic antisemitic attacks jumped 360% since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7.
“The continued vandalism at and around Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza is shameful and disgraceful,” Andrew Goretsky, regional director of ADL Philadelphia, said in a statement on X.
“Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza is a reminder of what happens when too many in society accept antisemitism and hatred as easy solutions to difficult issues,” Goretsky continued. “We can never forget the lessons of the Holocaust. Everyone must speak out and condemn those who spread hate in our community to help us push back the tides of antisemitism.”