As Jews worldwide began celebrations on Rosh Hashanah eve Wednesday, a Nazi swastika was found spray-painted on a Holocaust memorial in Ukraine's capital of Kiev.

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Specifically, the monument commemorates the Jews murdered by Nazis in Babi Yar during the war, an event whose anniversary is due to be marked on September 29.

The vandalism Holocaust memorial. ( )

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The swastika was apparently sprayed on the monument overnight Tuesday by vandals on a base stone of the menorah-shaped memorial where the story of the massacres is written. Caretakers of the memorial worked for over an hour to remove the symbol.

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A representative in the Ukrainian Cabinet in charge of religion and nationality issues said in an official statement published following the incident, that, "the shameful degradation of the memorial for victims of the Nazis is a deliberate provocation intended to illustrate the anti-Semitic atmosphere and xenophobia which has apparently taken hold in Ukrainian society."

"These attempts to present the Ukrainians as anti-Semites and xenophobes to the international community are useless," said another message quoted by the "Interfax" news agency in Russian.