The City of Ottawa fired a 46-year-old man, identified as Iain Aspenlieder, from his role as a city lawyer after he was accused of vandalizing the city’s National Holocaust Monument on June 9.
Ottawa police stated that the man, who was scheduled to appear in court on June 28, is accused of mischief to a war memorial, mischief exceeding $5,000 (about $3,500 U.S.) and harassment by threatening conduct. It added that the department’s hate and bias crime unit was leading the investigation.
Mark Sutcliffe, the Ottawa mayor, stated on Saturday that “while it’s encouraging to see that the police investigation into the incident at the National Holocaust Monument has progressed, I’m very disturbed to learn that the person charged is a city employee, who was on leave.”
“As a community and as an employer, the actions at the monument do not represent our values,” the mayor stated. “I’ve asked city officials to take all appropriate action in light of these developments.”
The CBC reported on Sunday that the city fired Aspenlieder. Stuart Huxley, the interim city solicitor, told Radio-Canada that the man “was on leave at the time of the incident and is no longer employed by the city,” per the CBC.
‘Most beautiful’
Less than two weeks after the monument was defaced, TimeOut listed it among the “24 most beautiful buildings in the world.” (The museum at Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City also made the list.)
“It’s our collective duty to learn from the past, and commemorating dark chapters in our history with such stark monuments is one way to encourage that vital introspection,” the magazine said of the monument, built in 2017 and titled “Landscape of Loss, Memory and Survival.”
“The building’s structure centers around six triangular volumes that form the Star of David, and it’s organized around two planes—one ascends, pointing to the future, and the other descends into a space which features murals and photographs of the Holocaust to ensure it’s not forgotten,” the magazine said.
“To be on a list with the Taj Mahal and the pyramids was a very, very pleasant surprise and quite an honor,” Lawrence Greenspon, volunteer co-chair of the National Holocaust Monument Committee, told JNS.
“There’s no other monument that has been similarly honored, and no other place in Canada, so it’s a wonderful thing to receive that recognition,” he said. “It underlines not just the beauty of the place, but the importance of it as a place for memories and respect.”
Unlike some of the other sites on the TimeOut list, the monument is “not only to be seen,” according to Greenpon.
“It’s far more important to spend some time there and to learn and understand why we have to have a national Holocaust monument in Canada, and why there are other monuments like it throughout the world,” he told JNS.
“We were delighted and surprised. We never thought that the National Holocaust Monument would be in the top 24 in the world for individuals to come visit,” Annette Wildgoose, president of the National Holocaust Monument Committee, told JNS. “We recognize it’s a unique monument.”
The monument was designed by the internationally known Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind. “Obviously, his expertise made it really one of a kind in the world,” Wildgoose said. “What sets us apart from the other buildings or monuments on the list is the significance of the meaning. It’s a place of gathering. It’s a place of solitude and reflection.”
“Monuments are usually just seen as something that stands up from the ground,” Howard Fremeth, vice president of communications and marketing at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, told JNS. “This is a space that you walk through and you have a meaningful experience and you are changed when you go.”
Fremeth told JNS of the vandalism that “our community and our allies were totally horrified by that scene, the defacement, the fake blood on the side of the monument.”
“Just a few weeks later, we see that the monument is honored,” he said. “So I think that in moments of darkness and challenges for our community, there are brief moments of light, and that is what we have to hold on to, that optimism.”