Vandals in Amsterdam have smeared “Free Gaza” in red paint on a statue of Anne Frank, the young diarist who documented Nazi persecution before perishing in the Holocaust, according to the foundation named after her.

The girl’s hands were also painted red.

The police have launched an investigation.

The city announced that it would press charges and spoke of a “disrespectful” action.

The sculpture had previously been smeared with red paint at the beginning of July.

Sunday marked exactly 80 years since Anne Frank and her family were betrayed in hiding and arrested by occupying German forces in Amsterdam on August 4, 1944.

The German-Jewish family had fled to the Netherlands in the 1930s to escape persecution of Jews by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in their home country, but then became trapped after invading German forces occupied Amsterdam.

Dutch police said they were investigating whether there was a connection between the latest incident of vandalism and the anniversary of the Frank family’s betrayal.

The Anne Frank Foundation reacted with dismay.

“This graffiti hits us right in the heart again,” foundation director Ronald Leopold said.

He said the foundation intended to press charges.

The statue is in front of the former home of the Frank family in the south of the Dutch capital.

The family went into hiding in 1942. They remained in hiding for two years in a rear building, which sits on the Prinsengracht canal.

It was there that Anne wrote her now world-famous diary.

After their arrest, all the members of the Frank family were deported to concentration camps.

Anne died in spring 1945 at the age of 15. Only her father Otto survived.