The Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is painted with slogans such as "Fuck the Nazis", and a bronze statue is covered in red paint with symbols of anarchism underneath. Next to the statue, a flag with the words "Down with Fascism" was also found, and a police spokesman confirmed the news from the local television station AT5.
It is unclear who did the graffiti and police are looking for witnesses. According to a police spokesman, the city government will clean up the words.
The statue was created for the 1928 Olympics, a man doing what he called an "Olympic salute," but the way it was saluted was related to fascism and Hitler's salute.
This "Olympic salute", created by Dutch sculptor Gra Rueb, is a tribute to Frits van Tuyll, who promoted the Netherlands to the Olympic Games, and is different from the "Hitler salute", the former's hand is raised upwards, the latter is almost flat, but still confused, because only the angles are different. Moreover, later scholars confirmed that the two were based on the same tradition, and after World War II, this "Olympic salute" was no longer used.
The stadium decided to move the statue to a less conspicuous place in 2020, but according to AT5, this has not happened yet for unknown reasons.
On Sunday, Amsterdam's Olympic Stadium was designated as a safety risk zone as one of the rallying points for demonstrations against the pandemic measures that day. This also applies to Oosterpark, Westerpark, and Museumplein, where police can conduct a search of anyone who appears in these places as a precautionary measure.
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