Youth in custody

Warsaw synagogue attacked with Molotov cocktail

The burn marks on the façade of the synagogue are clearly visible.(Bild: APA/AFP/Sergei GAPON)

An arson attack was carried out on a well-known Warsaw synagogue on Wednesday night. A previously unknown person threw a Molotov cocktail at the building.

The Israeli ambassador to Poland, Jacov Livne, published a photo on the X network showing burn marks on the Nozyk Synagogue in the center of the city. Poland's President Andrzej Duda condemned the "shameful attack", as he called it. "There is no place for anti-Semitism in Poland! There is no place for hatred in Poland!", he wrote on X. Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski also reacted to the suspected attack. "Thank God no one was injured. I wonder who is trying to disrupt our EU accession anniversary," he wrote.

Police announced the arrest of a 16-year-old Polish citizen involved in the incident on Wednesday evening. Polish Deputy Interior Minister Czeslaw Mroczek said the teenager was suspected of attempting to set fire to the Jewish place of worship.

The only synagogue to survive Nazi terror
The 1902 synagogue is special in Warsaw because it is the only Jewish place of worship in the city center to have survived the destruction by the Nazis during the Second World War.