Holocaust memorial dedicated to Jewish children is toppled by vandals, Oklahoma cops say

Vandals toppled statues dedicated to children who died in the Holocaust at a Jewish museum in Oklahoma, police say.

Tulsa police say they have arrested two suspects seen in surveillance videos knocking down the statues and trying to steal them from The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art. The five statues each are filled with 2,000 rocks bearing the names of Jewish children killed by Nazis in the Holocaust.

On Thursday, police arrested a 15-year-old and 16-year-old. The teens also are accused of threatening a person with a knife before going to the museum, police say. They’re charged with assault with a deadly weapon and felony vandalism.

The boys’ identities were not released because of their age.

The museum discovered the vandalism Wednesday morning, police say.

“You come out and your car’s been egged — that’s not great,” Lt. William White said in a Facebook video. “But when you have statues dedicated to the children that lost their lives in one of the greatest tragedies in humankind, obliviously there’s a different tier there.”

The museum estimated the suspects caused more than $15,000 in damage, police say.

Over the past several months, other Jewish sites have endured vandalism with anti-Semitic messages.

In Boise, Idaho, an Anne Frank memorial was vandalized with swastika stickers stating “we are everywhere” in December, the Idaho Statesman reported.

A Jewish temple in Spokane, Washington, was defaced with red swastikas spray painted on its walls this month, McClatchy News reported.

This story was originally published February 25, 2021 at 4:17 PM.