(CNN) At least 59 Jewish gravestones and monuments were vandalized in northern Slovakia, local police said, calling the crime "monstrous" and the resulting spiritual damage "incalculable."

The tombstones were tipped over and broken up in the Jewish cemetery in Namestovo, near the Polish border, the leader of Slovakia's Jewish community said.

Non-Jewish locals had been taking care of the cemetery for decades, since the local Jewish community was murdered in World War II, Richard Duda said in a statement.

At least 59 tombstones were tipped over in the Jewish cemetery in Namestovo.

"The tombstones remained untouched for many decades and survived the Second World War, which took away those whose descendants would be caring for the graves of their loved ones today," Duda said.

"The locals realized that relatives could no longer take care of the graves because they flew up the chimney," he said, in a reference to the ovens where Jews were burned in the Holocaust.

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