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Anti-Semitic Attack Suspected

Huge Berlin Jewish Cemetery Vandalized

The Jewish cemetery in Berlin's Weissensee district is one of Europe's largest and most historically significant. On Monday night, unknown perpetrators knocked over more than 20 headstones. Police say the attack may be politically motivated.

One of Europe's largest Jewish cemeteries, the Weissensee cemetery in Berlin, has been attacked by vandals who knocked over 23 headstones and 10 short pillars on Monday night, police said on Tuesday.

Berlin's Interior Minister Ehrhart Körting and the chairwoman of the Jewish community in Berlin, Lala Süsskind, visited the site Tuesday to inspect the damage, which was discovered by a member of the cemetery staff on Tuesday morning.

"A political motive cannot be ruled out," said the police in a statement, adding that they had launched an investigation.

The cemetery in the eastern Berlin district of Weissensee contains 115,000 graves and elaborate tombs, most of which predate World War II.

Berlin's Jewish community has been calling for government funding to refurbish the site. Many of the mausoleums and headstones have been crumbling and decaying for over half a century because the descendants of those buried there perished in the Holocaust.

Historians say the site, opened in 1880, is a national treasure because the musicians, scientists, poets and businessmen buried there show how integrated and important Jews were in German society before the Nazi genocide. Painter Lesser Ury is buried there, as is Samuel Fischer, who founded one of Germany's biggest publishing houses, and the writer Moritz Heimann. The father of Hollywood director Billy Wilder -- who fled Berlin after the Nazis took power -- is also buried there.

Reports of attacks on Jewish cemeteries are not uncommon in Germany, where synagogues and other Jewish institutions are often under 24-hour police guard.

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