Mural honouring Holocaust victims defaced in Milan

A mural depicting Italian Jewish survivors of the Holocaust has been defaced in Milan .

Painted on a wall, the iconic image depicts Liliana Segre, an Italian senator and fellow survivor Sami Modiano, wearing striped concentration camp uniforms and khaki bulletproof vests.

But, following an act of vandalism earlier this week, their faces and yellow Stars of David have been scratched out .

Ms Segre, 94, was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp as a child, survived, and is now a member of the Italian senate, the upper house of parliament.

The mural was painted by aleXsandro Palombo, a prominent Italian artist, whose work often touches on political themes.

It was unveiled in late September and was intended to serve as a reminder of the Holocaust and a rise in antisemitism across Europe .

At a pro-Palestinian rally in Milan recently, Ms Segre was labelled a "Zionist agent" on some placards.

The defacing of the mural was condemned by Mario Venezia, the head of Italy's Holocaust memorial museum, as a "demented act". Piero Fassino, an MP from the centre-Left Democratic Party, described it as a "cowardly assault on Holocaust memory".

Following the vandalism, Ms Segre said: "I have reached a certain age so if some crazy person decides that I should no longer be part of the world, I have experienced many things in my life, if it has to finish like that, so be it."

Last month, a mural depicting a survivor of last year's Oct 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel, was also vandalised in Milan.

Meanwhile, the manager of a small hotel in northern Italy refused a reservation made by an Israeli couple, claiming their country was "responsible for genocide".

The couple had booked two nights for the beginning of November at the Hotel Garni Ongaro in Selva di Cadore, a mountain village surrounded by the Dolomites, using an online reservation platform.

A day before their departure, they received a message from the hotel's staff: "Good morning. We inform you that the Israeli people – as those responsible for genocide – are not welcome customers in our structure."

The hotel manager then invited the tourists to cancel their reservation, adding they "would be happy to grant free cancellation".

The manager has since closed his Facebook profile, and he was not immediately available for comment.

Jewish groups condemned the incident as an example of antisemitism and the Israeli foreign ministry said it was investigating.

"I feel infinite sadness for the ignorance shown by certain people," Dario Calimani, the president of the Jewish Community of Venice, said on Thursday. "When you don't agree with what Israel does, you spread hatred against all Israelis."

Luca Zaia, the Veneto region governor, dubbed the incident as "extremely serious".

"I feel deeply disturbed and I'm shocked by what has happened," Mr Zaia said. "Veneto must guarantee its doors are open to all."

Incidents of antisemitism have increased in Italy to about 80 or 90 a week in the last year, from about 30 a week before the war in Gaza started, the Antisemitism Observatory reported.