DC’s Union Station defaced with swastika drawings

Multiple drawings of swastikas were found on pillars outside Washington, D.C.’s Union Station on Friday, a day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It is unclear when exactly the station was vandalized, though it is believed to have occurred late Thursday night or early Friday morning.

Amtrak police told The Hill they are investigating the situation along with the Metropolitan Police Department and said it “strongly condemns this act of hatred.”

“We must address the root cause of the anti-Semitism, hatred and bigotry that leads someone to do this in the first place,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) tweeted Friday.

Menendez called the swastika display “sickening,” saying “anti-Semitism is real and we cannot tolerate it.”

“The sight of Nazi swastikas in our nation’s capital the day after #HolocaustRemembranceDay is deeply upsetting,” the Jewish Federations of North America said in a tweet about the incident.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday marked the 77th anniversary of the closure of the infamous Auschwitz camp, the largest death camp where Jews were tortured and killed during the Holocaust.

Jan. 27 was dedicated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005, in an effort to “honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides” worldwide.

The Anti-Defamation League found that there were 2,024 reported antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in 2020 — the third-highest number on record since 1979.

Updated at 1:40 p.m.