SAN FRANCISCO -- Vandals have defaced a Holocaust memorial outside San Francisco’s Legion of Honor museum, painting swastikas inside a Star of David and on a granite plaque, authorities said.

San Francisco police were notified of the vandalism at about 9 a.m. Wednesday when the swastika was found drawn in black marker on a bench in Lincoln Park, Lt. Neville Gittens said.

Similar 4- to 8-inch drawings were found on the nearby memorial; two on a granite plaque bearing the title of the work, "The Holocaust," one on a plaque beneath the words "Never say there is no hope," and one drawn on the right shoulder of a plaster figure standing behind barbed wire.

Visitors to the Holocaust memorial were shocked and horrified that someone had vandalized a monument that pledges its existence to "the creation of a world in which such evil and such apathy will not be tolerated."

Phoebe Gaston and her daughter Courtney had come to visit the Legion of Honor from Sonoma.

"We didn't expect to see this," Phoebe said, reaching through the barbed wire to touch the cheek of the figure that had been defaced. "It just grabs your heart."

The memorial, a permanent art installation by sculptor George Segal, was dedicated in 1984 and is one of many works owned and maintained by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Jill Manton, director of the city's $80 million collection of public art, said the Arts Commission deals with graffiti on many of its public installations, and that anti-Semitic graffiti has shown up on the memorial in Lincoln Park before.

"I believe it happens periodically with that sculpture," Manton said.

The cost of repairing the damage has not yet been assessed, but Manton said such repairs are always costly and take money away from the commission's other projects.

"We hire conservators who are experienced in removing graffiti without harming the surface of the figures," she said. "We try to act immediately."