New England Holocaust Memorial’s Glass Shattered By Vandal: 2nd Time In Six Weeks

On Monday night, the New England Holocaust Memorial was vandalized for the second time in the last six weeks.

The memorial, which has 22 panels of glass 54 feet high that make up six glass towers, had the glass panel etched with numbers representing those tattooed on victims in the Nazi concentration camps shattered, allegedly by a 17-year-old boy who was charged with willful and malicious destruction of property, according to the Boston Police Department.

According to CNN, police arrived and found the teen held by two bystanders. Witnesses said the boy was hurling “what appeared to be a rock at the Memorial which shattered a glass panel,” according to a police press release.

In Jewish tradition, stones are left at a burial site by visitors; there were stones at the memorial. It is unknown if one of those stones was used by the vandal.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh tweeted:

In June, James Isaac, 21, of Roxbury, Mass., was accused of shattering a glass panel of the memorial. The memorial was repaired in July.

CJP, Greater Boston’s Jewish Federation, released this statement in the wake of the vandalizing:

We are appalled and saddened that the New England Holocaust Memorial was vandalized Monday night for the second time in just 6 weeks. The images of Nazis marching in the streets of America over the weekend in Charlottesville and now shattered glass once again at this sacred space in Boston are an affront to our Jewish community and to all those who stand-up against bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism. We thank the Boston Police and the Public Works Department for their rapid response and for their continuing support during this difficult time. We will remain resilient and will have a timeline for rebuilding the memorial once we have assessed the damage.