HALLANDALE BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A family is speaking out after swastikas were left on a Holocaust survivor’s car in Hallandale Beach.
Officials have been made aware of several anti-Semitic tags that were spotted in both Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
The granddaughter of the vehicle’s owner, Bianca Higdon, said the family has been shaken by what they found.
“I can’t even explain the feeling,” she said. “I mean, I immediately started crying. It brings tears to my eyes now, the pain that I felt.”
Two swastikas were scrawled onto the back window of Charles Antman’s car, which was parked in a garage.
Antman was a Holocaust survivor, U.S. Army Veteran and businessman. He passed away a few years ago, but his family uses the car when they visit South Florida.
The car was parked at the Hallandale Beach high-rise Condominium where he lived. The unit also remains in the family.
“My grandfather’s former nurse, she’s still a part of the family. We’re very close with her,” said Higdon. “She goes to check on the car pretty frequently, and she was going to take it for an inspection, and that’s how we found this.”
Higdon said her grandfather never had any problems in the more than two decades he lived in the building. They are shocked that the discovery came a day before Passover.
“His parents were killed in the Holocaust, so you know, this really, really hurt, in a big way,” Higdon said.
This is just one of the recent incidents of anti-Semitism that have been seen in Miami-Dade and Broward.
Over the weekend, graffiti was seen in several spots that read, “Communism is Judaism.”
Higdon said she knows her grandfather would react to the recent incidents.
“I think he would be heartbroken, but I know him, and he would want to find the person who did this, and he would want everyone to know what these people did.”
Higdon said the family is in some sort of parking dispute at the building, and she has no idea if that has anything to do with the tagging of her grandfather’s car.
Regardless, she said, it is still sad that someone would choose these sorts of symbols to try to get their point across.
If you have any information on who was involved in these incidents, call police.
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