Flag of Canada
Flag of CanadaiStock

Police are looking for witnesses after anti-Semitic graffiti was found at a school in Aurora, Ontario, north of Toronto.

The graffiti was discovered last Thursday on a storage building at Aurora High School, the Canadian Press reported on Monday.

York Regional Police hate crime investigators believe that the spray painting occurred sometime between 5:00 p.m. last Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 a.m., according to the report.

Investigators are asking any witnesses, anyone with information or anyone with dashcam footage in that area, to come forward.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) said that the graffiti called to stop white genocide and claimed that the six million Jews that died in the Holocaust was a hoax.

“As we saw in the hate crimes report released last week, anti-Semitism is an ever present problem in cities across the country. This is one of many recent hate-related incidents that have taken place at schools, particularly in York Region,” said FSWC President and CEO Avi Benlolo, referring to a report issued last week by Statistics Canada, and which found that Jews were the most targeted minority group for hate crimes in Canada in 2016.

“A strong police response is necessary in these situations to ensure the perpetrators, who most often choose to hide behind such deplorable graffiti, are not given more opportunities to express hate,” added Benlolo.

This is the second time in recent months that anti-Semitic graffiti has been discovered in Aurora. The first incident occurred in September, when anti-Semitic and anti-black graffiti was found spray painted at the Hartman Public School.

Police did not say what was spray painted, only describing it as hateful, anti-Semitic and anti-black.

Several weeks ago, anti-Semitic graffiti was spray painted on a sidewalk near a Jewish private school in Thornhill, Ontario, north of Toronto.

Earlier this year, two swastikas were found drawn in chalk in a York University classroom. Police in York Region later said they would increase patrols and presence at synagogues, Jewish community centers and other Jewish institutions across the region.