Warsaw’s main synagogue was attacked with firebombs by an unknown perpetrator, but sustained minimal damage and nobody was hurt, Poland’s chief rabbi said.
He said the synagogue was hit with three firebombs or Molotov cocktails and only sustained minimal damage “by tremendous luck or miracle”.
A blackened area that appeared to be the result of flames could be seen at one spot on the building.
Politicians and faith leaders have condemned the incident at the Polish capital’s Nożyk Synagogue, which follows similar acts across Europe.
Polish police are working on identifying the perpetrators. “This is our priority at the moment,” Deputy Commissioner Jacek Wiśniewski from the Warsaw Police Headquarters told the local media.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda wrote on X that he condemned “the shameful attack,” saying, “There is no place for antisemitism in Poland! There is no place for hatred in Poland!”
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski noted that the incident fell on the 20th anniversary of Poland joining the European Union along with nine other countries, most of them Central European nations that had been under the Soviet sphere of influence for decades.
“Thank God no one was hurt. I wonder who is trying to disrupt the anniversary of our accession to the EU,” Sikorski wrote on X. “Maybe the same ones who scribbled Stars of David in Paris?”
Poland, which until the Holocaust was the home of Europe’s largest Jewish population, numbering some 3.3 million, is now home to a mere few thousand Jewish residents.
