Twenty cobblestones commemorating members of two Italian Jewish families who were deported to Auschwitz or killed in Rome were dug up and stolen in the early hours of Monday in an apparent anti-Semitic attack.
The bronze-capped cobblestones were embedded into the pavement outside a building in Rome's central Monti neighborhood that was home to the Di Consiglio and Di Castro families until World War II. Police said they were investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.
Asked about the incident at a news conference, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is also interior minister, said he would do everything to stop such acts of "repugnant anti-Semitism."
The cluster of stones commemorated 18 members of the Di Consiglio family and two from the Di Castro family. Fifteen were deported to Auschwitz in 1944 and died either there or in an unknown place. The others were among the 335 Italian men and boys, including 75 Jews, killed in the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome in March 1944 by occupying Nazis. They were murdered as a reprisal for the killing of 33 German policemen by partisans.
On Monday morning, a gaping hole remained where the stones were. "This is beyond vandalism. This is a deliberate attempt to deface memory," said Ylenja Lucaselli, a parliamentarian of the of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party.
The writing on each stone started with the words "Here lived" followed by the name of the person, the date of deportation or arrest and the place and date of death, if known.
The organization responsible for laying the plaques, "Art in Memory," reported the theft. In July, the same group reported receiving a threatening letter featuring a photo of Adolf Hitler.
"The association denounces this vile act of fascism and anti-Semitism, and invites all Romans to be vigilant and keep memory alive to prevent these criminal acts from continuing and being tolerated and legitimized," the group's president, Adachiara Zevi, told The Associated Press.
Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi condemned the plaques' theft as unacceptable: "Memory requires respect," she tweeted. The Rome-based Catholic charity Sant'Egidio vowed to continue honoring Jews who perished.
That memory, Sant'Egidio said, "is all the more precious to defend against the worrisome growth of new racism and discrimination."
Rome's historic center houses the Jewish ghetto, near Monti, and its cobblestoned streets are dotted with more than 200 plaques in front of homes of Jews who were killed or deported during the war. They were made by the German artist Gunter Demnig, who has placed an estimated 70,000 of them around Europe to remember all those who were deported, Zevi said.
