(IsraelNN.com) German police are investigating the desecration of a Jewish cemetery with a pig's head hung on a metal Star of David. Politicians and public officials are in shock over the latest escalation in rising anti-Semitism that has revived the horrors of the Nazi "final solution" to exterminate all Jews.

A paramedic who was walking his dog discovered the sacrilege in the city of Gotha, approximately 215 miles southwest of Berlin. Next the pig's head was a cloth sign stating, "Six Million Lies."
Next the pig's head was a cloth sign stating, "Six Million Lies.

 
Anti-Semites also vandalized a Jewish cemetery in nearby Erfurt with broken glass and a red liquid at the entrance.

The desecrations are "terror that must be punished with the full force of the law,'' Dieter Althaus, head of the Thuringia state where the attacks took place, told the German newspaper Bild. Approximately 750 Jew live in the province, a tiny number of the more than 100,000 Jews residing in Germany.

Michel Friedman, former vice president of Germany's Central Committee for Jews, was quoted by Bild as saying the attacks are a "criminal act against the Jewish faith." He added, "The perpetrators knew what they were doing. It is not a petty offense."

Police said they are investigating, but the incident is not the first offense of its kind. Five years ago, a pig's head was found at another Jewish cemetery located in Schleswig-Holstein. Neo-Nazis confessed to the desecration.
 
Authorities last year recorded 17,175 summons against neo-Nazis in Germany, including vandalism and attacks at Jewish kindergartens, schools and synagogues.

Nearly 800 anti-Semitic offenses were recorded in the country in the first nine months of this year, a post-war high, and the London Telegraph noted, "There seems to be no stopping the tide of hate."
 
Anti-Semites harassed a Berlin rabbi less than two weeks ago, yelling at him, "The gas is waiting."