Vandals Target Lisbon’s September 11th Memorial with Anti-Semitic Graffiti

Lisbon, Wisconsin – The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office is actively searching for the individual responsible for defacing a September 11th memorial in the village of Lisbon with hate symbols.

Over the weekend, an unknown vandal spray-painted swastikas and anti-Semitic remarks on both the village’s 9/11 memorial and the brick exterior of the Lisbon Village Hall building. References to the Bible were also found among the graffiti.

Crews worked Monday to remove the images, using a special chemical agent to power-wash spray paint off a real steel beam from the Twin Towers, carefully preserving the piece of history.

“There is a swastika over here. There are some other anti-Semitic remarks,” a spokesperson for the cleanup effort said. “When you see that… I think everybody kind of gets a little jolt in their heart strings. It just hurts to read it and see something like that. The first thing you want to do is find the person who did it and then have it removed immediately.”

The memorial, which sits in a community park, was built through community donations. Each year on September 11th, residents gather at the site. A Lisbon Fire Department lieutenant, who had originally envisioned a small display on a firehouse wall, noted that the idea grew into the larger tribute.

“The building we can clean up, or we can rebuild,” the lieutenant said. “But a memorial like this—many people donated money and funds for this to happen, and it’s close to a lot of people.”

Highway crews successfully cleaned the memorial, and officials expressed hope that such an incident would not occur again soon.

“Hopefully, we don’t have to hear about something like this happening for a really long time,” a spokesperson added.