A leading centre for the study of the Holocaust and genocide said it was "saddened" after a poster advertising its latest exhibition was defaced with the words "free Palestine", with the organisation's director describing the incident as "a sign of the times.". 

The Wiener Library tweeted a picture of a poster for its current free exhibition Shattered: Pogrom, November 1938, examining Kristallnacht as the 80th anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom approaches.

The library reported it to the Community Security Trust and Transport for London.

"We were saddened to see our tube poster at Russell Square defaced this morning," the library's twitter account said.

"We have reported this graffiti & continue to welcome all to learn about Kristallnacht by visiting our exhibition."

Ben Barkow, the Wiener Library's director, told the JC: "this incident is a sign of the times. It reflects the historically illiterate response to anything touching on the Nazi persecution of Jews which emanates from those committed to antisemitism and the hatred of Israel.

"Our exhibition continues to offer the kind of critically aware, historically informed view of Jewish history that is the antidote to bigotry. Perhaps the person who did this should come and have a look and have their prejudices challenged."

Kristallnacht was a pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany, carried out on the 9-10 November, 1938 on the pretext of responding to the assassination of a Nazi diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, by a Jewish man, Herschel Grynszpan, in Paris.

The Nazis killed more than ninety Jews and deported tens of thousands to concentration camps. More than 250 synagogues in Germany, Austria and the formerly Czech Sudetenland were destroyed, with over a thousand more damaged.

Some 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed or damaged, with Kristallnacht - 'night of broken glass' - referring to the nationwide, state-sanctioned vandalism.

The Nazis subsequently imposed a collective fine on the Jewish community of one billion marks for the murder of vom Rath, and six million Reichsmarks of insurance payments for property damage due to the Jewish community were instead  paid to the government as "damages to the German Nation".

Under the IHRA definition of antisemitism, "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" and 
"holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel" are examples of potential Jew-hate.