May 1, International Workers Day, was marked by two anti-Semitic incidents in Finland. Overnight Thursday, a statue of Vladimir Lenin was defaced with a Star of David and the words "Jewish mass murderer."
According to a report by the state YLE news outlet, the vandalism was discovered during a routine police patrol.
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The statue is located in the town of Kotka in southern Finland and was presented by the town's sister city, the Estonian capital Tallinn, in 1979.
Also last week, a Jewish cemetery in the nearby city of Hamina was vandalized. The perpetrators are believed to be neo-Nazis. YLE reported that at this time, there was no proof that the two incidents were related.
A senior member of the Finnish Jewish community told Israel Hayom that "Finland is now like other places. In recent months, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic incidents, in which Jews are blamed for the coronavirus pandemic.
"This is notable in online discourse and also in the stickers distributed throughout Helsinki by the Nordic Resistance Movement [a neo-Nazi organization]," the official said.
