Mural by Jewish child prisoners in WW2 desecrated in France. (Hat tip: Goldie.)

PARIS - Vandals have desecrated a mural painted by Jewish children during World War Two in a transit camp in southern France where they were held before deportation to Nazi Germany, police said Sunday.

The desecration, which a historian reported to police Friday, follows a recent rise in anti-Semitic crimes in France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community of some 600,000.

The mural, a painting of a countryside scene, was found almost completed chipped away. Vandals smashed through a wall to get at the mural, which was protected by bars. The abandoned site outside Perpignan, near the French border with Spain, served as a transit camp from 1941 to 1942 under France’s collaborationist Vichy regime.

Some 2,000 Jews were held there. Most were then moved to Drancy, near Paris, and then to Nazi concentration camps.