The Holocaust memorial (pictured) in Montevideo, Uruguay, was vandalized twice in one week. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Twice in five days, a Holocaust memorial in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti minimizing the Holocaust.

Local authorities have launched an investigation, JTA reported.

“They have vandalized us again. What’s going on?” tweeted Carlos Varela, the mayor of the Punta Careras district of Montevideo, where the memorial is located.

“We call for sanity, tolerance and peace,” he wrote.

Vandals used black paint to write slurs including, “The Holocaust of the Jewish people is the biggest lie in history”; “Only 300,000 Jews died from typhus”; and, “Gas chambers were a fraud.”

Unveiled in 1994, the memorial has been defaced several times in recent years by antisemitic vandalism. This time, however, was the most severe, with graffiti covering a large portion of the memorial, the local newspaper El Pais reported.

“We repudiate the anti-Semitic graffiti with concepts that deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, and with that we are hopeful and encouraged by the quick action of cleaning the site and launching a prompt investigation,” stated the Israelite Central Committee, the country’s Jewish umbrella organization.