The mayor of Samara, Ukraine, is offering a cash reward at the municipality's expense for information leading to the arrest of anti-Semites who desecrated the local monument commemorating the Holocaust martyrs murdered in the city by the Nazi Germans.
Samara, a small city in local terms, with a population of about 70,000, is located in the Dnipropetrovsk region in the east of the country.
The impressive monument to the city's 4,000 Jews, including 360 children who lived in Samar and were slaughtered in cold blood, was erected about 15 years ago by the Jewish community in nearby Dnipro, which is considered the largest established Jewish community in Ukraine.
In Dnipro, there is the Menorah Jewish Center, which covers an area of 54,000 square meters - giving it the title of "the largest Jewish center and Chabad house in the world.".
The monument in Samar was built in the shape of the Hebrew letter "T" and reads "We remember for the future.".
In recent days, residents noticed that anti-Semitic graffiti had been sprayed on it, chants praising the Nazis such as "Long Live the Reich," the SS symbol, swastikas - and paint had also been splattered on it.
Mayor Serhiy Reznik announced that he had reported the incident to law enforcement and offered a reward equivalent to several salaries for reliable information leading to the identification of those responsible for the vandalism. He said, "Information providers will be guaranteed complete anonymity, should they request it.".
Reznik noted that he was shocked by the act: "Those responsible must be brought to justice not only for the desecration of the memorial site, but also because elements who spread Nazi symbols and anti-Semitism are being exploited by Russian propaganda to damage Ukraine's reputation in the international arena.".
City officials said that the damaged monument will be restored and expressed confidence that law enforcement authorities will make every effort to locate those responsible and bring them to justice.
