AN anti-Semitic vandal spray painted “Nazis R good” in a children’s play area on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Residents and representatives rushed to Stoneham Park with scrubbing brushes and wet wipes after the tagging was spotted yesterday morning.

Jon Pike, 54, who lives near the park in Hove, took materials to clean up the words, along with a swastika, after seeing it on social media.

He said: “I wasn’t happy sitting at home knowing that graffiti was up. I picked up some paint stripper and said that if it hasn’t been cleaned up I’m going to get rid of it. I cleaned it up at about 10am.”

Representatives from the county’s Jewish community said the graffiti “shames us all”.

A spokeswoman for the Sussex Jewish Representative Council said: “That a swastika – the most poisonous, evil symbol of hate – was daubed on a children’s playground in Hove shames us all.

“Coming today on Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz just highlights how much more education needs to be done about the dangers of anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination and mindless hate.

“It is time that this hatred is made unacceptable in our society and that those who perpetrate it are prosecuted with the full force of the law.

“Some time spent with local Holocaust survivors might also be helpful.

“Many thanks go to local resident Jon Pike, who went out and cleaned off the graffiti himself.”

Wish Ward councillor Robert Nemeth also went to the park to clean up other graffiti, written in the same green paint. The graffiti comes as people across the world remember the horrors of the Holocaust on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

It was the largest extermination camp where more than a million people were killed.

Cllr Nemeth said: “I was shocked and saddened to witness such an insensitive act on Holocaust Memorial Day of all days. We, the community, have quickly removed the graffiti which is heartening.”

Labour’s Hove MP Peter Kyle said: “Whether this was intended to incite, shock, or scare our community, it doesn’t matter. The person who did it needs to be punished for the harm this does.

“They must be helped to understand how the Nazi Party murdered millions of Jews and hundreds of thousands of gay and disabled people and political opponents too – I wonder if the person who wrote this and their family would have survived living in Nazi Germany?

“Graffiti like this is a sickness that is once again spreading, we must all take a stand against it.”