Prague – A memorial honoring the escape of mostly Jewish children from the Nazis, organized by Sir Nicholas Winton, has been damaged in an apparently carefully planned attack.

The Valediction Memorial at Prague’s main railway station, representing trains used to transport 669 children from the Czech capital to Britain, was left with a long crack across the length of a symbolic window pane.

The vandalism appeared to be aimed at disfiguring the shrine’s most evocative feature, a train window engraved with handprints depicting adults and children forced to bid farewell in heartbreaking circumstances.