Berlin police said released a police report on Sunday detailing damage by unknown persons to a Jewish memorial in Steglitz and said that an investigation was ongoing.

Police said that at around 4:10pm on Saturday, officers noticed paint smeared on the monument on Hermann-Ehlers-Platz. The mirror surface of the monument was damaged with “political content,” however police state that the lettering was made illegible. The State Security Police of the State Criminal Police Office have taken over the further investigations.

The Steglitz memorial commemorates the Jewish residents of Berlin-Steglitz who were killed in concentration and extermination camps. It also memorializes the synagogue which was located there. The state criminal investigation office believes the defacement of the monument was an act of extremism.

In recent years, there have been multiple incidents of Holocaust monument vandalism in Germany. In July 2022, unidentified individuals drew swastikas on one of the concrete slabs of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial. In August 2023, a Holocaust memorial in Berlin dedicated to the LGBTQ+ victims was damaged in a case of arson. Furthermore, the Shoah Memorial in France, which recognizes 3,900 people who risked their lives to save Jews, was vandalized in May this year.

Antisemitism has increased in Germany in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas, with one civil society group saying that incidents have quadrupled. Shortly after Hamas’s October 7 attacks and Israel’s subsequent siege of Gaza, a synagogue in Berlin was targeted with a fire attack. At the time, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the attack and promised to protect the country’s Jewish communities. He also noted in later comments that Germany’s connection to the Holocaust means they must be extra vigilant of antisemitism and antisemitic violence.