Warsaw police arrested a 31-year-old man Thursday morning for damaging commemorative plaques at the Pawiak prison site used during the World War II occupation by the Nazis.
A night patrol captured the sober man around 2:30 a.m. after he tried to flee, according to Polish-based Polskie Radio. The extent of the damage is being examined by museum staff.
The Nazi Gestapo used Pawiak prison, named after the street where it is located, and kept an estimated 100,000 prisoners there from 1939 to 1944 of which 37,000 were killed, according to the museum’s website. Between Oct. 16, 1943, and Feb. 12, 1944, there were daily executions, which were at times carried out on the streets so as to frighten people, according to the museum’s website.
The recent incident marks the third time this year a Polish World War II camp has been vandalized. In December last year, the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign was stolen from the gate at Auschwitz. In March this year, holocaust memorials at Nazi concentration camp Plaszow, near Krakow, were sprayed with anti-semitic graffiti reading “Hitler Good” and “Jude Raus” (Jew Out), The Politifi Network reported.
