A monument put up by Jews in Bulgaria to thank the town of Vidin for preventing their deportation during the Holocaust was vandalized on Saturday.

The Shalom Organization of Jewish in Bulgaria said in a Facebook post that “Thanksgiving Monument” erected in 2003, was spray-painted with the words “Allah,” “Palestine,” “Hamas,” and the Islamic star and crescent moon symbol.

Ognyan Tsenkov, the mayor of the Vidin mumicipality, later condemned the vandalism as “outrageous and unacceptable”.

Shalom Organization President Alexander Oscar  thanked the mayor, who ordered that the graffiti be ceaned up immediately, for his firm statement and quick actio.

Mayor Tsenkov  stressed that the monument “will continue to be a symbol of the brotherhood and a long history between our two peoples”, according to the JTA report.

In 1943, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, along with a group ofpoliticians and many members of civil society stood up to the Nazis and prevented Jews being deported to the death camps.

Next year will mark the 75 anniversary of Bulgarian opposition to the deprtation of the the country’s 50, 000 Jews.

Despite that success, more than 11,000 Jews from parts of northern Greece and Yugoslavia, territories which were under Bulgarian administration during World War II, were deported and killed.