A Nazi flag discovered flying on a light tower in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, Feb. 17, 2020. Photo: Anti-Defamation Commission.

An Australian Jewish civil rights group on Thursday condemned the flying of a Nazi flag on a light tower in a city in New South Wales.

The chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, Dr. Dvir Abramovich, called the incident “a desecration of the memory of the victims and the brave Australian soldiers who died fighting the Third Reich, and a punch in the guts of the Holocaust survivors.”

The Canberra Times reported that the flag was discovered on Monday attached to a light tower in the city of Wagga Wagga.

The city’s mayor, Greg Conkey, said, “I’m outraged, and I know a vast amount of people in Wagga would be outraged.”

“It doesn’t reflect this city in any way, shape, or form,” he added. “I’ll get onto it and make sure the flag is removed first thing.”

The flag was indeed removed the next day.

Abramovich, who is leading a national campaign to criminalize the public display of Nazi symbols, said in a statement, “By now it’s obvious that the campaign by homegrown neo-Nazi and white supremacists to take their ideology of murder from the online sphere to the physical world is at an all-time high and is expanding.”

Referring to the March 2019 white supremacist shooting attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which killed 52 people, Abramovich said, “Let’s remember that there is a direct connection between the flying of the Nazi flag and deadly violence like the rampage we saw in Christchurch, and this threat should be given national priority.”

“The alarming surge of hard-core racists using this evil symbol in prominent locations or to deface public spaces serves as another wake-up call that that these Final Solutionists are emboldened, and are hell-bent on terrorizing minorities and spreading anxiety in the community,” he added.

“The frequency of incidents also indicates that these bigots are also amplifying physical presence so as to advance their racial agenda, in an attempt to attract new members to their dangerous cause,” Abramovich noted. “I repeat my call for state and federal governments to send a crystal-clear message to these extremists, who dream of an Australia without Jews, that this is not Hitler’s Germany, and to criminalize the public exhibit of the Nazi swastika.”