Moscow Times - 12.20.2004

A worker replacing gravestones Friday at a Jewish cemetery in St. Petersburg. The cemetery was also vandalized in February. (Dmitry Lovetsky / AP)

Moscow Times 

Vandals Defile Jewish Cemetery

By Dmitry Lovetsky

(AP) - ST. PETERSBURG — Vandals defiled a Jewish cemetery in St. Petersburg for the second time this year, scrawling swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti on 30 graves and a synagogue, Jewish leaders said Friday. 

Mark Grubarg, head of St. Petersburg Jewish Community, called on police to do more to protect the cemetery, where people found "Jews Get Out of the Country!", "Long Live Holocaust!" and "Heil Hitler!" scrawled on the synagogue. Graves were covered with swastikas and Nazi SS signs. 

"This is the worst thing, to defile something sacred, the history. And it's so low to fight the dead," Grubarg said. 

The cemetery was also vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti in February. 

Grubarg said the incident flies in the face of President Vladimir Putin's calls to prevent any sort of extremism or intolerance. 

"Such actions present a big danger for such a multinational state as Russia," he said.