Unidentified individuals spray-painted a swastika and the words “Gas the Jews” on a building in Melbourne that used to house a business founded by Holocaust survivors, local media reported on Monday.
The discovery over the weekend of the graffiti on the former address of Gottlieb’s Building Supplies in Melbourne’s Malvern East suburb comes amid a surge in antisemitic incidents across Australia.
The store was founded by the Gottlieb family in 1965 and closed down only recently.
“It is believed that the roller door of a business on Dandenong Road was offensively graffitied sometime during 15 and 16 February,” a Victoria Police spokesperson told The Nightly.
Zionist Federation of Australia President Jeremy Leibler told the news site: “Something we know from history is that antisemitism exists under the surface. When it’s out of its box, and it is allowed to come out, it is much harder to put back in. That is what we are experiencing right now. It was not taken seriously enough at the beginning or called out.”
In recent months, Australian Jewry has seen more than a dozen major cases of violence, antisemitism or intimidation. In one case, a synagogue was torched, resulting in no injuries. In another, police found a trailer with explosives and indications of a planned attack on Jewish targets.
Australia under Labor Party Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing criticism that the government’s critical attitude toward Israel in its war on Hamas has emboldened perpetrators of antisemitic crimes. The government has rejected this claim and vowed to curb antisemitic violence.