Three youths overturned and broke a number of headstones in a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest, local police said on Tuesday. The incident drew condemnation from Romania's small Jewish community. In a statement to state news agency Agerpres, police said they had identified the youths, aged from 13 to 16, but had made no arrests pending a criminal investigation. The Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania said 10 tombstones had been damaged in the incident, which occurred on Sunday night. "This act of grave vandalism and anti-Semitism saddened and revolted the whole Jewish community in Romania," it said. The president of the foundation, Aurel Vainer, said the timing of the incident was no coincidence, as Israel was marking Holocaust Remembrance Day from sunset Sunday to sunset Monday. Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany during World War II until it changed sides in August 1944. In a 2004 report, an international commission put the total number of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews who perished in territories under Romanian administration at 280,000 to 380,000. The country had a pre-war Jewish population of about 800,000, but fewer than 11,000 Jews live there now. Romania is a European Union member state with a total population of around 20 million people. After the collapse of communist rule in 1989, Romania passed laws to return property to the original owners, but the process has been hampered by red tape.
